Unisys Corporation today announced the winners of the 12th annual Unisys Cloud 20/20™ contest, one of India's largest and most popular annual student innovation programs. The contest received more than 685 submissions from more than 400 colleges across India.

The project titled Edge-driven Biometrics and Facial Recognition was picked as the winner. The winning project was led by students of M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology who had submitted their solution, a next-generation, reliable biometric and facial recognition model, based on edge computing. The solution is designed for a workplace environment. Another team from M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology was awarded the second place for their project titled Unisys Natural Assistant, which is an AI assistant that helps employees of an organization with their day-to-day activities. With a variety of features, the solution enhances the long-term productivity and efficiency of employees. Students from Sri Manakula Vinayagar Engineering College were awarded the third place for their project titled, Sarvatrika, a solution which makes it possible to take machine learning even to people who are not very tech savvy. The solution automates algorithm selection and then applies the chosen algorithm on the given data set to solve the particular prediction problem.

The participants went through three rounds of scrutiny, followed by a final evaluation by an eminent jury comprised of Seshadri P.S., Sr. Director - Security Audits, Risks & Compliance, Office of CSIO, Unisys; N.S. Srivathsa, Sr. Engineering Director, Solution Innovation & Architecture Group, Unisys; Meenalochani Rajnish, Engineering Director, ClearPath Forward®, Unisys; Meenakshi Lakshmanan, Engineering Director, Cloud and Infrastructure, Unisys; Ravi Kodanda Ramchandra Rao, Director, Application Services, Unisys; Mohit Mathur, Director, Pursuit Operations, Global Enablement, Unisys; and Prashant Kumar Gupta, Sr. Architect, CloudForte™, Unisys. Winning teams were awarded cash prizes up to INR 4.25 lakhs.

“Our flagship event Cloud 20/20 has been encouraging innovative thinking among the young minds of today, equipping them with holistic experiential learning to make them industry-ready. Established as an event that truly celebrates the spirit of innovation and collaboration, Cloud 20/20 has proven to be the perfect platform that bridges the gap between industry and academia. Our aim is to bring together the country’s technical talent, hone their knowledge with practical experience, and provide them with a stepping stone into the professional world," said Sumed Marwaha, managing director, Unisys India and regional vice president, Services, Unisys.

Established in 2009 as a technical paper submission contest, the platform has now evolved into a business-facing contest. Last year, the program introduced the Targeted Innovation Program (TIP), which challenges required participants to find innovative solutions to real-life business problems posed by Unisys’ clients. This is in addition to the Student Innovation Program (SIP), which challenges participants to utilize emerging technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to solve business or societal problems.

Both the TIP and SIP programs offer students the opportunity to collaborate with their peers, faculty and Unisys mentors, who provide them guidance and expertise in the run-up to the competition. The contest attracts a mix of talent from research students, postgraduates, pre-final and final-year engineering students in computer science, information technology and other related streams.

Launched in 2009, Cloud 20/20 is one of India’s most popular technical contests for engineering students. Apart from giving the students a platform to innovate and interact with the industry experts, the forum is a continuous effort to bring together the tech innovation fraternity under one roof.