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India Innovation Challenge

Become India’s sustainability champions

"Today for Tomorrow-My Sustainable School".

We believe that students today can shape the world of tomorrow by driving innovative solutions to the challenges that we face. It is imperative to transform young learners into responsible citizens with sustainable, eco–friendly lifestyles and schools remain the hub for bringing in change and larger impact in society. Not just creating or installing infrastructures that promote the use, reuse and recycling of energies, students need to be empowered to ideate, suggest improvements and assess the impact of their intervention too. Like to calculate how much water was saved after installing rainwater harvesting structures in school? Or how much electricity was saved after equipping the building through solar panels? That’s where the ‘WHY’ is answered. 

The India Innovation Challenge 2022, marked the return of the students to their school campuses after the COVID pandemic. It focused on the connection between the school environment and the students who are connected with this environment on a daily basis.

This competition offered students from India, a chance to showcase their innovative ideas and critical thinking skills to champion sustainability integration into day-to-day life in the school environment.

By submitting a 4-5 minute video, our future leaders have shown firsthand the inspirational work that is being done at their campus, it has been an inspirational journey to witness the commitment shown by our students and schools from India towards the cause of sustainability.

This year we had a tremendous response to the call for entries for the IIC 2022, showcasing their innovative sustainability projects to our global student and alumni community.

While we celebrate the winning teams, we also acknowledge and applaud all our participating teams, our brilliant students and their teacher mentors from India.

What became evident from these results is that our cherished way of life and habitat for plant and wildlife around us, the healthy ecosystems that provide us with the source for life, all of this depends on clean water: to function and to flourish. And the young adults of today are not just passively concerned but have actively engaged in taking corrective measure to renew this most important reason for life on planet earth.

Prizes for the three finalists

Winners and finalists will receive attractive prizes*.

All participating students receive Certificates of Participation.

  • 1st prize – an Apple iPad for students and an Apple Smartwatch for mentor teacher 
  • 2nd Prize – a Lenovo Yoga Tab for all winning team members and mentor teacher
  • 3rd Prize – a Samsung Galaxy smartwatch for all winning team members and mentor teacher

Meet our winners from 2022

First Place: Every Drop Matters

Ms. Helly Gala, Ms. Sia Dhruva, Mr. Hridikk Hingorani of Prabhavati Padamshi Soni International Junior College, Mumbai

 Teacher Mentor - Ms.Shanta Chawdhury

Launching project Every Drop Matters, the students of PPSIJC, have successfully introduced sustainability within their school premises with a focus on clean water and sanitation. With the implementation of methods such as tap water pressure reducers, flush tank Infrared sensors, compost, and water collection, they have achieved fifty percent reduction in water wastage. With each of the methods targeting a different source of water around their school, from water taps to flushes in washrooms to canteen water usage and even the watering of plants around. Their efforts resulted in significant recycling, reuse and preservation of water.

Second Place: Klein B

Ms. Ridhima Gupta, Ms. Muskaan Naulakha, Ms. Avani Advani of Jayshree Periwal Global School, Jaipur

Teacher Mentor- Mr. Tanay

Klein B is an innovation which uses a solar-powered boat to eradicate the problem of Eutrophication from the water bodies in a completely sustainable way. It cleans the turbidity of water using Azolla Fern, Daphnia and other Bio-chemical components. It also clears the visible scum and garbage from the lake surface and produces plant nutrition sources for the market. Water in the Eutrophicated lakes becomes toxic and the environment around it unpleasant and smelly. Klein B cleans a lake in around 60 days and revives the natural ecosystem, thus boosting economy and tourism along-with the clean water.

Third Place: Renew the Future - Greywater Recycling System

Ms. Vedaa Vandavasi, Ms. Sharvari Khedkar of Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School, Thane.

Teacher Mentor - Ms. Ranjini N S

The Grey-water Recycling System is a solution provided by students is a huge step towards conserving water. The objective of this project was to find ways to reduce, reuse and recycle hundreds of litres of water wasted at school every day. After researching the amount of water used and its discarding process, the students found innovative solutions to reprocess and reutilize the water. They designed a model for a greywater recycling plant that consists of a bio-filter, sand gravel filter and surge tank. Among the many benefits, the grey water recycling system saves around 50% of water. By implementing this system in our school in future, they plan to motivate others but sharing the information with other schools nearby.


FAQs

  • Registration open for information session 1: 25 July 2022
  • Information Session #1: 7 August 2022 at 10.30am
  • Information session #2: 20 August 2022 at 10.30am 
  • Last date for competition submission: 11.59pm on Monday 5 September 2022
  • Winner announcement at an online award ceremony: 13 October 2022

Participation is open to students pursuing Grade 11 or 12 at an English medium school in India (any board).

 

Participants should submit their entries directly through the University's website.

The last date for submission was 5 September 2022.

 

Students had to submit their project information in the format described below:

  • All project information and submissions must be in English.
  • Video uploaded to YouTube and submit the link via the application form by the stipulated deadline.
  • Mandatory information:
    - Topic: Name of the project with the two chosen areas
    - School name, city and brand (if any)
    - Name of each team member along with grades
  • Email ID and contact number of each team member

No, participation in the competition was free of charge.

No, each participating team could enter only one project entry.

Yes, students may take the help of a teacher. In such case, the teacher’s details have to be mentioned in the application form.

  • Incomplete submissions
  • Late submissions
  • Lack of ownership of creative rights or infringement of copyrights of others
  • Not compliant to the rules of the contest guidelines.

Each submission will be evaluated against the degree to which the project meets the category and to which the actions were deemed to be innovative, transformative and impactful. The weightage distribution is as follows:

  • Relevance: Addressing the chosen areas of impact, relevance and potential
  • Content: Quality and comprehensiveness
  • Innovation: Originality and newness of the idea
  • Impact: Impact on community and society
An expert judging panel will score and comment on the submissions. The panel is composed of a variety of academic stakeholders engaged in sustainability strategy implementation at the University of Sydney.

The submissions were reviewed by the judging panel from 1 to 30 September 2022.

Results were declared in an on-line ceremony on 13 October 2022.

All participants were notified via email by the University of Sydney and contacted directly to plan their participation at the Online Award Ceremony.

Anjalii Agarwal

Senior Recruitment Advisor, School Engagement (India)
Details
You can also contact:
Nishant Jadhav
Senior Regional Manager (South Asia, Middle East and Africa) india.info@sydney.edu.au
Phone: +61 2 9114 1120