EXCITE 2017 had a participation of 215 students from 26 colleges. During these five weeks, 70 product prototypes on the Internet of Things(IoT) and allied technologies have been successfully created by students. Some of the product ideas include
- Quit Help, a wearable device to monitor and avoid relapse into smoking
- My Farm, A solution for farmers to automatically manage water supply and improve productivity of farm
- Face present, a Face recognition based attendance management system
- Cover-up, an automated car covering system
- EAST, a device to prevent deaths of children and pets in cars
- TIPCO, an automated way of counting trips using RFID
- Power Spy, a mechanism to monitor power consumption and notify and sensitize users for the conservation of electricity.
This five-week program saw more than 45 Industry mentors from leading companies, startups and technology leader’s participation. The program covered various aspects of product startups starting from market need identification, business opportunity validation, design thinking, technology design, engineering the solution and making product pitch presentations. Students worked in teams and built the first prototype of the product idea.
The VC of JNTUH is very keen on supporting the teams over the next 12 months and has announced plans for a structured Accelerator to encourage students to build their products and aim to commercialize them. TASK has announced prizes and funding support to the top 11 teams as a sign of encouragement to the teams to build their products.
EXCITE programme over the last three years has ignited a change in culture across college campuses with students participating in several hackathons. The placement track record of the EXCITE 2016 batch has been very encouraging with a good number of students getting placed in product development companies and Startups. The maximum salary of EXCITE 2016 batch drew was Rs 9 lakh and more than 5 students bagged a package of more than Rs 5lakh. This is a huge jump in salaries of the students in their respective colleges. A host of companies have appreciated the initiative and have shared their willingness to consider EXCITE students for internships and placements for current and future EXCITE participants.