National Winners of HUL TechTonic spill the beans! -By Team Troika from XIMB
Our idea was to address how plastic collection and segregation happened at ground level. Our solution was based on applying IT in order to make work easier. We hardly got 2-3 days before the final event. Balancing course submissions along with preparation for the event was a big challenge for us. We hadn't imagined that our efforts will pave our way to the finals and that we'll eventually bag the title of the National Winners of HUL TechTonic.
What made us different from the crowd?
8 teams made it to the finale. In addition to our team from XIMB, the other seven finalists hailed from IIM Kozhikode, Lucknow, Indore, SP Jain, XLRI, NITIE and NMIMS. We were not able to see the other presentations, so, we do not have an idea about how the other teams performed.
Our team, Troika, consisted of Arushi, Sourav and me, Soura. I and Arushi are both first-year students and we previously collaborated for HUL Carpe Diem and had won that too. So, we had great chemistry. To top it all, we had Sourav Saha, our senior from second-year who brought experience to the table. Our experience as a team was great! I and Arushi already had great chemistry. Sourav was our senior and so he took some time to get in sync with our matched chemistry. We didn’t have many conflicts.
Our team’s primary forte was dedication. A holistic approach along with the experience of already winning before is what worked in our favour. Talking about individual talents, I worked on the idea, thinking out of the box, while Arushi constantly worked on validating the given ideas. We also exchanged roles. Because of prior work experience, Sourav worked on the finances and sorted that out.
Why HUL TechTonic stood out to us?
The competition was quite intriguing. It tackled one of the core global challenges and how IT can be leveraged to do that. The judgement quality was great. Also, an HUL employee was assigned as our mentor. He was a great help, since we could run our ideas before him and he would help us out with the intricacies of our idea.
Of course, nothing can beat the feeling of listening to our team name being called out on stage as the National Winners of HUL TechTonic.
One basic learning that we garnered was how IT can be leveraged. We understood how both, the idea as well as execution, are important and the efforts HUL is putting to solve the issue at hand. And most importantly, the more holistic an idea is, the better and more conceivable it is. There should be a clear reason stating the whys and whats. In all, our journey of the entire competition was not only amazing but also provided a sea of learning opportunities.