Unisys continues to connect young engineers with business leaders through its flagship event

Unisys announces the winners of the company’s annual technical project competition for engineering students in India – the Unisys Innovation Program (UIP). The program’s goal is to connect young engineers with today’s business leaders to collaborate on new-age tech and innovations. 

Now in its 14th year, the program received more than 700 project submissions from nearly 190 higher education institutions across India – a 250% increase over the last year’s submissions and the highest number since the program’s inception in 2009. Registration for the program closed in February with more than 7000 registrants. 

The winners of the 14th Annual Unisys Innovation Program are: 

First place goes to M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology for their project, Sleep Apnea Detection using Personal IoT Devices with Novel Privacy Persevered Federated Learning. The project harnesses the power of IoT, Cloud Computing, Machine Learning and Web3 to offer a privacy-focused framework that can be used to diagnose diseases like sleep apnea and atrial fibrilation. The student team included Hrishikesh K Haritas, Darshan Bankapure, Rahul K Vishal, Vineet H Sadarangi and they were led by faculty guide, Dr.Meeradevi. 

Second place goes to Dayananda Sagar University for their project, Breast Cancer Detection Using Quantum Machine Learning and Deep Learning compared to the conventional methods. This project leverages quantum machine learning and deep learning algorithms to diagnose breast cancer and classify patients based on their tumor characteristics – it also dives into whether quantum algorithms have an edge over classical approaches. The student team included Snavya Sai M B, Sindhu S, Varsha Premanand and they were led by faculty guide, Veena M. 

Third place goes to M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology for their project, Privacy Preserving Machine Learning computation using zkSNARKs. This project explores how zero-knowledge proofs and homomorphic encryption can be leveraged to enable privacy conscious training and inference of machine learning models The student team included Rohin Joshi, Rohan A J, Dhruv Dange, Sharath R Maiya, and they were led by faculty guide, Sanjay H. A. 

Sumed Marwaha, Managing Director for Unisys in India, said, “For a long time, India has been acknowledged as the world's IT capital, and we’re excited to see this reflected in the response to our UIP-program with an all-time high number of registrants from across the country. Students and job seekers are determined to thrive in today's competitive landscape. At Unisys, we believe in breakthroughs, which are why it’s important to have a platform for new talent that helps the youth improve their skills and expertise and prepares them for the specialized technology roles of the future.” 

Overall, seven winning teams were invited to present their projects at the grand finale ceremony for the final round of evaluations. The winners were selected by a panel of judges based on feasibility, viability, originality, sustainability and technical approach. Special guests Suresh M Khadakbhavi, CEO of Digi Yatra Foundation and Ken Henry who leads the Solutions Development team that drives the development of Enterprise Computing Solutions at Unisys.  He also delivered keynotes during the ceremony. 

Dwayne Allen, Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer of Unisys and head of Solution Innovation, commented, “We are impressed by the degree of imagination and effort demonstrated by this next generation of talent. Curiosity and innovation are at the heart of all we do, and the Unisys Innovation Program is one of many platforms we host to stimulate collaborative thinking, experiential learning, and to cultivate a pipeline of promising talent.”