The story of the journey of “Project Blue Sky” to the top

A group of ten members of the IEEE Student Branch in Vidya competed in the Humanitarian Technology Project Design Competition (HTPDC) conducted by IEEE Power & Energy Society Humanitarian Activity Committee (PES HAC). Dr Sudha Balagopalan, Dean-Academics, served as the mentor for the project and the members of the group were Neha Baju, Grace Antony, Jeeva H Menon, Lohith Manakkalath, Gayatri Satheeshkumar, Akhila M, Aishwarya P P, Manjima M L, Mohammed Fayas and Sachin J. The project was about “air purification and disinfection within single system” using latest technologies, especially during the current Covid pandemic situation. Frequent meetings were conducted in the online mode  to finalise the project design.

The journey to the top

• All teams participating in the competition were provided  training sessions by the chairperson of PES-HAC  HTPDC Dr Shaikh Fattah.
• In the preliminary round the participants were required to submit eight-minute videos. From those submissions the organisers shortlisted 25 teams from a total of 65.
• The next round was the  “Local presentation round” in which each team had to submit a video and a two-page report in advance.
• This was followed by an interactive session with  judges via online platform in  which  the submitted video was played and a question answer session held.
• After the presentations, 12 teams were selected to the “Final Round” and the team from Vidya was one among them.
• Finalists had to submit a five-minute video presentation and a report which included details of technical implementation and cost details .
• The  submitted video was played live before the judges followed by a question -answer session.
• The next day there was a flash round in which each team had to present a two-minute video  and answer the question asked by the other teams . Vidya team too had to prepare questions for other teams.
• The final judgment was done by the following judges:
  • Dr Shaikh Fattah (PES-HAC Chair,HTPDC chair)
  • Mr Thiago Alencar (PES-CSAC chair)
  • Mr Hussan Mahdi (HTPDC Project Assessment chair)
  • Mr Ashraful Haque (HTPDC Project Training chair)

It was a marvelous experience for the team members and they got a wide exposure on various subjects which would help them in their academic journey.

Read an earlier report

IEEE Student Branch of Vidya flying high: Gets selected to finals of a global competition