BITSoM Design Thinking Challenge Mumbai 2033 winners announced at Beacon 2023

The theme for the Challenge was: How can the citizens of Mumbai, from all sections of society, enjoy a better quality of life with opportunities for work and recreation in the next 10 years?” With over 1700+ participants between the ages of 18-30 working in teams, the challenge aimed to foster innovation, identify problems and opportunities, and propose practical and implementable solutions.

BITS School of Management (BITSoM) announced the winners of the Design Thinking Challenge – Mumbai 2033, at the second edition of Beacon, its Management Ideas Festival. The theme for the Challenge was: How can the citizens of Mumbai, from all sections of society, enjoy a better quality of life with opportunities for work and recreation in the next 10 years?” With over 1700+ participants between the ages of 18-30 working in teams, the challenge aimed to foster innovation, identify problems and opportunities, and propose practical and implementable solutions.

‘Fineapple,’ a team of young working professionals from Mumbai, clinched the top prize to take home INR 2.5 lakh. The team comprised Aishwarya Chodankar - an Architect, Paridhi Subbaian Kaliamoorthy - a Research Engineer from IIT Bombay, Daksshin Gopalakrishna - Chartered Accountant and Pranjali Bhagwat - Vice Principal of a school. Their proposal was to create a solution for urban agriculture that enables recreation in Mumbai with a modular planter system, which they named Plant Lego. It uses a honeycomb-like structure to maximize space efficiency while accounting for soil aeration, ease of maintenance and user-friendliness.

‘Up-Coming’ from NMIMS’s BSSA, Mumbai, consisting of Nandika Shah, Rajvardhan Jain, and Gaurav Shah, were the runners-up, and won Rs 1.5 lakh. Dream Team and OG Design Thinkers from WeSchool, were the other two finalists.

After the first round, the jury had shortlisted ten teams who attended a full-day Masterclass on Design Thinking with Founding Dean Dr Ranjan Banerjee, at the BITSoM campus. The next stage had seen four finalist teams mentored on presentation skills by Prof Rajeshwar Upadhyay and then presenting to an audience of CEOs and CXOs, on the Beacon 2023 stage.

In its second edition, Beacon 2023, the Management Ideas Festival addressed the theme – Building High Performing Teams. Former coach of Indian Cricket Team – Gary Kirsten, Oscar winning filmmaker – Guneet Monga Kapoor, Classical vocalist and composer - Kaushiki Chakraborty, and Music Director – Shantanu Moitra, Rajat Gupta – Sr Partner McKinsey and Company, were among the speakers at the event.

Speaking about the challenge, Dr Leena Chatterjee, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, BITSoM, said, “Leaders of tomorrow must care about and shape the environment in which they function. In line with this, our Design Thinking Challenge was an opportunity for the youth of Mumbai to apply the design process to ideas that can positively impact Mumbai and its future.”

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