Mumbai, September 6 2016: Tanusha Goswami, a third year Electronics and Communication student of Manipal Institute of Technology made Manipal University proud by bagging the second prize at the GE contest for global universities called, “the Unimpossible Missions: University Edition” held in April 2016.
The competition received over 575 entries from over 375 institutions and 35 countries. And, as expected, the competition was fierce. Three winners were selected for their brilliant, and possibly feasible approaches to solving their Unimpossible Mission. Tanusha won the second prize and an internship with GE in Bengaluru.
The students were asked to select an idiom and think of an experiment to debunk that idiom using GE technology, And, Tanusha focused on the Spanish saying “Cuando llueva pa’ arriba” (When rain falls upwards). Her experiment used magnetic fields to make water drops go in the opposite direction.
Ms Sukla Chandra, General Manager, Global Research Director, PACE, John F Welch Technology Center, Whitefield Bangalore handed over the prize to Tanusha at a felicitation function held at the AC Seminar Hall of MIT on Saturday. Giving a brief about how GE conceptualized the idea of conducting a competition for university students. She said, “We thought of doing experiments to prove that the impossible can be done”.
“A snowball was put into molten metal in a container, invented by GE Researchers. It was found that the snow did not melt.” That led to the idea, “Why don’t we impress upon the students of universities to come and participate in experiments to prove that impossible can be done. The thought gave rise to this competition,” Ms Sukla said.
Dr G.K. Prabhu, Director of Manipal Institute of Technology while congratulating Tanusha for her achievement, assured the students that the institute would go all out to ensure that the dream of every child was fulfilled. “Students have come here with a dream, we’ll ensure that it is nurtured and fulfilled,” he said and thanked GE for the support and recognition”.
“I am excited. I got butterflies in my stomach,” was how Tanusha exclaimed when asked if she was excited. “The competition had a deadline of June 15 and the class was told about it in May. I started researching, considering different options with different ideas. After a lot of thinking, I finally selected a Spanish idiom. I chose the Spanish idiom because I know the language. Once that was final I started working on the experiment.” She thanked Dr Somashekara Bhat, Professor & Head, Department of E&C for his support. “In July I got information that I could be a potential winner and I had to fill few forms.” The rest is history.
Ms Sukla also made a mention of the prestigious “GE Edison Innovation Competition organized at the John F. Welch Technology Centre (JFWTC) Bangalore in 2008 which was won by MIT. The 5-member student team named ‘Fastrack Developers’ comprising Vasuki Prasad, Rupan Sarkar, Pranab Purkayastha, Rahul Sharma and Gaurav Kumar Barman with Prof. Dr. Radhakrishna S. Aithal as the mentor, presented “TRAIN BLAZER”, a reliable, rugged working model (approved & certified by the Indian Railway Authorities) on communication system to record and display maximum information of the train passing through a station without stopping and to determine the characteristics of the rolling stock (hot axle detection, derailment possibility etc.) in a cost-effective way.