IIT KGP representing India at Shell Ideas360

Shell Ideas 360 a global competition will see a three student twam from IIT Kharagpur as the only ones representing India in their finale. The team comprises Gaurav Jain (fourth year, Dept. of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering), Apurva Gajwani (fourth year, Dept. of Agriculture and Food Engineering) and Ankit Lohani (Second Year, Dept. of Chemical Engineering).

Shell Ideas 360 is a competition that connects students to develop ideas to tackle the pressures on the world’s food, water and energy resources. The team has been working for over a year on a solution for the problem of food security in the world.

GrowSmart is a smart solution for the farm which provides an alternative low cost diagnostic option to the farmers. Prof. D.K. Swain from the Department of Agriculture and Food Engineering was the guide and university representative for Shell Ideas 360.

The competition was quite tough 982 ideas were submitted globally, out of which 66 ideas made it to stage two and the students from IIT Kharagpur made it to final five!

As the next step, Shell will be sponsoring the travel for the team of students along with the University representative to London, for their final pitch. The Final event will happen in UK at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic ground in London on June 30 during ‘Make the future London’ event.

The final will include coaching by Shell experts and presentation of the final idea to a judge panel of senior executives and subjects experts. The Top teams hail from India, Singapore (2 teams), USA and UK, who will be fighting for the prestigious ShellIdeas360 trophy and a once in a lifetime National Geographic Adventure.

Swapnil Sharma, Recruitment Marketing Lead, Shell Technology Centre, Bangalore, India said “We understand that the students will be travelling to London for their final presentation, along with their University representative.

We look forward for the Institute’s continued support and guidance in coaching and mentoring the students in the coming days to help the students win. Going forward, Shell looks forward to a great academic collaboration with IIT Kharagpur. Once again, congratulations – your students have made all of us proud!”

Shell Ideas360 is a prestigious competition organised by Shell is currently in its third edition and saw a participation of more than 1000 teams in Stage one who submitted an idea. Out of these 74 semi-finalist teams were selected by a panel of judges based on technical review.

Stage two was very tough as the competition now required not only the technical ideas but also the business model involving in-depth analysis of the market scenario, our strategy, possible risks etc. Every team was assigned a Shell mentor and coached via various hangout sessions.

There were also sessions with alumni from the institute who helped clear conceptions and simplify the idea. After the submission of over 74 teams and careful consideration, the top 5 teams were declared.

By: Aman Verma