Engineering students gear up for 'IBM Blue Battle'

Mumbai: IBM announced the launch of a technology challenge - 'IBM Blue Battle' - in over 25 leading engineering colleges across India. This is an opportunity for students to get hands-on-experience of technologies and use IT tools to develop innovative solutions for difficult computing problems in real time.

IBM expects over 1,000 students in each of the 25 hosting colleges to participate in the challenge. The first in the series has been launched at IIIT Hyderabad and is being conducted on IBM architecture for gaming. Other colleges lined up in the IBM Blue Battle series include UVCE Bangalore, JNTU Hyderabad, Madras Institute of Technology (Anna University) Chennai, a few IITs and NITs.

Amol Mahamuni, Program Director-WebSphere Solutions and Technology and University Relations, IBM India said, “The challenge will enhance the students' knowledge on technologies that are at the helm of innovation across the industry and provide them with an opportunity to develop innovative solutions in real work scenario. It hones their technical skills while learning basic on-the-job skills such as teamwork, organization, and working under deadlines.”

'IBM Blue Battle' will put to test the participants' technical prowess and reflect local universities' talent and strengths. It will enable participants to work on technologies such as multi processors/nano technology, electronics, service oriented architecture (SOA), Multi Core Architecture, enterprise computing (IBM Systems), information management, Web 2.0, cloud computing, virtualization and High Performance Computing (HPC). Mentors from IBM, along with the college faculty, will closely work with the students throughout the program.

This competition will also enable students to work on projects using IBM products, applications, tools and services in the future through further collaboration and mentoring by IBM experts.

The winners will receive prizes including Lenovo Ideapad laptops along with certification from IBM.

IBM's University Relations has been partnering with academia to drive evolving open standards-based IT skills. Some of the other activities under the University Relations include: IBM Technology Days at universities; developing strategic linkages with universities/colleges; assisting colleges with curriculum development and instructional material; helping colleges develop consistent, high quality curricula for leading and emerging technologies; promoting high quality education by providing support from IBM; evangelizing open standards technologies critical for the future of IT industry.