Tata Steel’s Annual Innovation Challenge ‘Mind Over Matter’ Season 7 concludes

• Pranav Pandey & Pratibha Patel from BIT Mesra emerge winners
• Aditi Sinha & Soumyadeep Singha from BIT Sindri secure the 1st runners-up position
• Anirudh Roy & Shikhar Ranjan from NIT Raipur bag 2nd runners-up slot
• Edition receives overwhelming response from 500+ students from 20+ premier engineering institutes of country

Mumbai: Tata Steel announces the season 7 winners of its much-awaited annual innovation challenge for engineering students, ‘Mind Over Matter’. The innovation challenge has garnered much attention and popularity amongst the students since its inception and has created a benchmark for cutting edge research and collaboration amongst Corporates, Academia and Students.

Pranav Pandey & Pratibha Patel from BIT Mesra emerged as the winner of Mind Over Matter 2020. Aditi Sinha & Soumyadeep Singha from BIT Sindri secured the 1st runners-up position; and Anirudh Roy & Shikhar Ranjan from NIT Raipur college bagged the 2nd runners-up slot.

Suresh Dutt Tripathi, Vice President, Human Resource Management, Tata Steel, said: “Mind Over Matter was conceptualised and launched in 2014 with an objective to engage with the brightest young minds and provide a platform for them to showcase their ability to research and innovate. The participating teams are invited to Tata Steel to create prototypes of their ideas under the mentorship of the Tata Steel R&D team. Tata Steel believes in building such programmes to engage with the young talent and inspire them to join the manufacturing industry and enable a future of possibilities.”

This year, for the first time, the grand finale and the award ceremony was organised using virtual platforms owing to the pandemic. The finale saw a total of 11 teams present their innovative solutions to the esteemed jury. Dr. Debashish Bhattacharjee, Vice President (Technology & New Materials Business), Tata Steel, graced the occasion as the Chief Guest for the finale. The esteemed jury included Dr. Debashish Bhattacharjee, Vinay V. Mahashabde, Chief R&D and Product Technology, Tata Steel, and Akshay Khullar, Chief Manufacturing (Long Product), Tata Steel.

The winning team received a prize money worth INR 1 Lakh along with a trophy. The 1st and the 2nd runners-up were presented with cash prizes worth INR 75k and INR 50k respectively. The certificates of recognition and pre-placement Interview (PPI) were awarded to the top three teams. Certificates of participation along with the goodie bags were given to all the other teams.

Mind Over Matter, an innovation programme launched by the R&D department of Tata Steel in 2014, invites and challenges sharpest, brightest, young minds from the premier engineering institutes across the country for giving ideas and solutions on various real-life technical challenges related to steel making. The students have a chance to win the opportunity to be mentored by top R&D experts at Tata Steel in a 2-month internship.

This year, Mind Over Matter saw overwhelming participation of more than 500 students from more than 20 premier institutes across the country. The competition witnessed submission of 340+ applications against the challenges (topics) put forth by the Company’s R&D team. Over the last seven editions, the annual innovation challenge has received 2000+ registrations and 1200+ proposals of which 55+ ideas from across diverse fields have been explored.