Putting Our Thinking Caps On in India

For 64 students from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Hyderabad, India, participation in the 2018 Aerospace Challenge Hackathon was all about creative thinking and innovation.

Honeywell recognizes that with technologies evolving and changing every day, there is a continuing need to develop a strong talent pool for the aerospace industry. Honeywell sponsors the Challenge to help give voice to the university’s brightest and most creative problem solvers.

The competition provided a forum to crowdsource new software and automation ideas that answer future aerospace challenges in this connected world. As part of its collaboration with the university, Honeywell Technology Solutions recognized the top three winners at the IIT Hyderabad campus.

The opportunity means a lot to aspiring engineers like Arjun D’Cunha and Arjun Ahuja, who said they are thankful to Honeywell to provide this platform that bridges the gap between academia and industry, challenges one’s creativity and limits, allows us to put our thinking caps on and arrive at an innovative solution.”

But the Challenge represents more than a one-time event. As Honeywell transforms into a software industrial company with about half of its 22,000 global engineers working on software, digital and physical solutions will become more and more connected to change the way we live and work. Domain knowledge will become even more important.

That’s why Honeywell is committed to nurturing Indian engineering talent and building solutions to support rapid growth in the country and in the world. Several winners expressed their thoughts about their participation and how they view innovating to meet future challenges, including:

• Jayasimha Reddy: “Participating in the hackathon gave me a chance to learn what it takes in building software for an aircraft. As an engineer, the whole process that goes into translating an idea into a product excites me. I aspire to create technologies that become part of an individual’s lifestyle. In my opinion, innovation is all about simplicity and robustness.”
• Tharun Reddy: “It was great solving actual industry problem statements and applying our academic knowledge to them. I aspire to become a civil servant and I feel any unique idea or new technology which incurs less cost is innovation.”
• Kola Sai Dileep: “I am glad some of my ideas will be pursued further by Honeywell engineering teams. I aspire to create things that can make common man’s lifestyle better. Innovation is all about teamwork and collaboration, where ideas take a bigger shape.”
• Sreekanth Madisetty: “The problem statements were both challenging and interesting. As an engineer, creating new and innovative solutions that solve real-world needs excites me. Innovation, to me, is a mix of confidence, discipline, perseverance, integrity, diligence and technical skills.”