Let me start with one of my favorite quote,
Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow
It feels good to write about global innovation done by other people around the world, but it’s a whole different feeling when you have to write about your own innovations.
Before I start, let me give you a very short background on “Technovation Challenge 2018”
This is a global level coding tournament.The goal of this event is to inspire female entrepreneurs to identify a problem in their community and help them create a mobile app solution to address that problem. Adobe has been supporting the cause from the start. We as Adobe employees are given many such opportunities to contribute to the social welfare.
Myself (Prajwal Shetty) and Bhavesh Rawal teamed up as mentors for the challenge. We had to mentor 5 girls from Vishwa Bharati Public School ( Aditi Jain, Kritika Sharma, Shriya Shukla, Sneha Agarwal, Shraddha Agarwal )
Let me tell you one thing, these girls are very ambitious and hard working. It was amazing to see the drive that these girls had to win the competition. They have been competing in the last two seasons of Technovation but could not make it due to a small margin in scores. The important thing to learn from these girls is that they did not give up and kept going with the same level of enthusiasm this year too.
The season began and we all geared up for it.Taking time out of our work was the challenging part.The students also had to make time out of their schedule.One thing that we all believed in was..
It’s not about ‘having’ time. It’s about making time. If it really matters, you will make time.
After 6 months of hard work and so many brainstorming session, we created the app “EEDO”
The mobile app helps dispose of e-trash in an eco-friendly manner.Our app connects the e-waste re-cycler to the common people.
Nearly 20000 registered, 5000 mentors, and 2000 apps across 115 countries. Only 12 global teams have made it to the finale. The Senior division finalist from the 6 countries are shown below.
Team Members:
“Team Cantavits” have 5 students, 2 mentors, 1 school mentor (teacher)
- Students: Aditi Jain, Kritika Sharma, Shriya Shukla, Sneha Agarwal, Shraddha Agarwal
- Adobe Mentors: Prajwal Shetty (myself) and Bhavesh Rawal
- School Mentor: Archana Jain
The Technovation World Pitch Summit was held in San Francisco Bay Area, California on August 6 where the girls demonstrated their project to the judges in their bid to attain a scholarship worth US Dollar 15,000.
It was a great feeling to see the Indian Flag hoist at the World Pitch in San Francisco Bay Area, California
Bhavesh and I made sure that our preparation was perfect. As a mentor, you also have the responsibility to keep the team motivated.
Just couple of hours before the pitch event, I did use the famous “70 minute speech” that was delivered by SRK in this movie “Chak De India”. I had to change the 70 minutes to 7 minutes as the pitch was for 7 minutes.
Bhavesh also used to send motivational quotes on the group to make sure that the team was always pumped up.
The next day the girls delivered the pitch and it was bang on! Perfect execution.
The next day results were announced and we Won!
https://www.facebook.com/TechnovationIn/videos/2145086769149609/
Proud of my girls.They have made India proud at the global stage.
Adobe and Technovation have provided us with an opportunity to innovate and make an impact on the global stage.
Proud to be the mentor for the top winning team of next-generation Girl Entrepreneurs at the Technovation 2018 challenge.
After all this,
I feel like SRK’s character in the movie “Chak De India”
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmsOinqrPvQ[/embedyt]
A message from Bhavesh and me to the girls is that..
This is just the beginning, and you girls are going to accomplish much much more in your life
Cheers to all the teams around the globe and Adobe teams that participated and made this season of Technovation a grand success.
Keep innovating and let’s continue to write India’s name in bold letters on the world map.
I would encourage everyone to be part of the next season of Technovation in 2019.
Believe me, it will be a great experience!
Related Article:
Time Of India: Noida girls create e-waste disposal app
Techonol : Only team from India to reach the finale of Technovation 2018
