NMIMS Mumbai Wins National Finals of Henkel Innovation Challenge 2015

NMIMS, Mumbai is the India winner of Henkel’s international student competition – Henkel Innovation Challenge 8. The young team with its innovative idea “Nanobend” will represent India at the Henkel Innovation Challenge 8 global finals in Vienna, Austria from April 8th to April 10th, 2015.

The winning team presented their project “Nanobend”, which is a coating on the walls that eliminates air pollutants and provides a clean air at home. It is moisture absorbent and nutrient rich, facilitating growth of algae similar to vines. The algae would absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

The winning team, Dark Side, has outwitted the other semi-finalists, who were from prominent colleges across India - NMIMS, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, IIFT, NITIE, Welingkar Institute of Management, Indian Institute of Management - Indore, Indian Institute of Technology – Kozhikode, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management to name a few.

The 10 teams were selected from a wide variety of disciplines across India where they had to develop a visionary product or a new technology for one of the three Henkel business sectors: Beauty Care, Laundry & Home Care or Adhesive Technologies. Throughout the competition, the teams were provided with extensive support from Henkel managers, who acted like mentors, advising the participants on further developing their innovative concepts. This platform allows the young visionaries to gain priceless, wide-ranging business experience.

The Jury members for this elite competition were Mr. Jeremy Hunter, President, Henkel Group – India, Mr. Dilip Chabria, Marketing Lead, team Indus and Mr. Raman, Director, SIBM.

At the event, Mr. Jeremy Hunter, President, Henkel Group India said, “We are overwhelmed by the response received from the students across India for our Henkel Innovation Challenge 8. Innovative ideas presented by the students have been setting a new standard and we had to take a tough call as the ideas presented were brilliant and well researched. At Henkel, through such events we constantly try to seek different avenues where students can participate and shore up to the upcoming challenges in their future.”

Excited about winning the National Finals, winning team of NMIMS said, “We are thankful to Henkel for providing us with such a big platform to sharpen our skills and encourage us to develop our idea and compete with the best in India. Now our focus is to make India proud at the global level”.

About Henkel Innovation Challenge

Once again this year, the competition attracted students from various disciplines from all over the world: ideas were submitted by teams of two from no less than 30 countries, including Brazil, China, the USA, France and India. The students’ task was to create an innovative and sustainable product or technology for a Henkel brand, based on the trends and market needs in 2050. 

The Henkel Innovation Challenge takes place for the 7^th time. In the last seven years 30.000 students around the world already participated in the competition. For Henkel, this event offers the opportunity to get to know outstanding international students in person and to profile Henkel as a potential employer. Henkel has a workforce of around 47,000 people from more than 120 nations in over 75 countries worldwide. Every year more than 1,500 students across the world carry out an internship at Henkel and in so doing gain initial experience of working at the company.