TCS collaborates with Discovery Education to launch student innovation contest
IT services giant Tata Consultancy Services has launched the Ignite Innovation Student Challenge in collaboration with Discovery Education. Young innovators who demonstrate adept skills at the competition have the opportunity to win as much as $10,000, in addition to mentorship from experienced TCS professionals.
The Ignite Innovation Student Challenge (IISC) is targeted at students currently in middle school – grade six to grade eight – and involves solving problems within the three broad social responsibility pillars laid down by TCS – namely the planet, health, and education – using innovative and computational thinking.
Students can team up in groups of up to four, and are subsequently expected to devise a concept that is based in the digital domain. Entries are submitted in either written or video format, the former involving a detailed description and the latter a one or two minute clip explaining the solution.
The concept must solve a pertinent issue, although flexibility is afforded in terms of whether the problem is a local, national or a global one. Nevertheless, students will have to clearly identify the target group and the benefit that their solution offers, leveraging at least two strategies that employ computational thinking.
Criteria for evaluation include the creativity, persuasiveness and presentation, and the ten submissions that top the list based on these metrics will then receive prizes, the biggest of which is a scholarship of $10,000. Other prizes include Top pillar prizes of $7,500 and six Winner Circle prizes of $1,000.
TCS is very active in promoting innovation amongst the youth in the US, having offered its goIT platform to the University of Southern California recently for a week-long tech camp teaching students about aerospace. IISC, meanwhile, is a part of its Ignite My Future in School (IMFS) initiative launched last year.
IMFS is a highly integrative programme that offers support to teachers and educators in the form of digitalised content, lesson plans and other professional learning techniques. The objective, much like IISC, is to incorporate computational thinking into the curriculum to the greatest extent possible.
The IISC contest is organised in collaboration with Discovery Education, which offers digital content across the world in the form of digital textbooks and multimedia content. The firm’s products are currently used by 4.5 million educators across the globe, and benefiting over 50 million students.
