Faridabad – Manav Rachna bags three out of ten awards in innovation championship

Sanjay Chaturvedi

Continuing the legacy of accomplishing perfection in whatever they do, the students of Manav Rachna International University Faridabad have once again proved that they are the best in their field.

Accenture, in partnership with Yahoo, organised the fourth season of a competition to launch a hunt for most innovative minds.  Out of the 2500 teams 16 teams were selected in the first stage in which 4 teams were from Manav Rachna International University.  In the next level 10 teams were shortlisted including 3 from Manav Rachna University. At this level the team of Manav Rachna International University made it to the top position of Innovation Jockeys, The Hunt for India’s most Innovative Minds. In the Cognitive Computing & Internet of Things category the team comprising Roopam Sharma, Harshit, Neeraj Saini and Akshita Sachdeva who represented Team Eyeluminati from Manav Rachna Innovation & Incubation Centre (MRIIC) were awarded the prize for their innovation ‘Manovue’.

Manovue, a wearable voice-controlled haptic device, aimed to help the visually impaired by using natural language processing to provide voice-enabled guidance and literacy. This is the first such innovation across the world. Manovue was s also among the top 10 innovations earlier this year and represented India in the world finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup held in Seattle, WA, USA.

“Manovue” is a multi-utility wearable haptic device used for helping a blind or visually impaired person move around in a complex environment as well asfor local-sequential text scanning, where the user scans the text progressively in a local view and hears the recognized words synthesized to audible speech. Manovue is going to replace the braille language in the future. The device also helps the blind person to move around freely outside well known environments by the means of haptic feedback. Manovue comes with a complimentary voice controlled mobile phone application which opens up the smartphone market for the visually impaired.

Congratulating the students on their victory, Dr. Prashant Bhalla, President, MREI said: “It is a moment of great pride for us that our students are getting recognition both at the national and international levels.Keeping up with the tradition, our teams have won top positions at the Accenture Innovation Jockey contest powered by Yahoo; surpassing 2500 entries from across the country. Prizes like this act as an inspiration for us to come up with all the more creative projects.”

The winners have also won a trip to the Accenture Technology Lab at Silicon Valley and a special mentorship program from Accenture. They have also got an opportunity of a direct interview with Accenture.

Taking forward the winning streak at MREI, two teamswere also awarded under the ‘Popular Ideas’ category. Team Adrishta comprising Anjan Kar, Rahul Sharma, Akash Lohan and Vaibhav Aggarwal were awarded under the ‘Most Popular Ideas’ category for their project ‘Gestalk’- a complete assistance for deaf and mute people.

Team Python comprising Vikas Kasana, Aman Sharma, Shivani Gaur and Swaraj Singh were also given a special award under the popular ideas category.

Students of Manav Rachna University have not been bringing laurels to their university but also the city for many years.