NEW DELHI, INDIA. Boeing and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) announced the winners of the sixth annual Boeing-IIT National Aeromodelling Competition, one of India’s largest and most popular aeromodelling programmes. This year’s competition featured 1,094 students from over 250 institutions across India. The competition also saw a 30 per cent increase in the number of girls participating in the zonal rounds.
34 finalists from 12 teams were selected to the final round held at the IIT Delhi Hockey grounds. Disha Bawale, Indraneel Mane Deshmukh, Apoorv Mathakari, Pruthwiraj Kothavale from MIT College of Engineering were declared winners of the competition.
“The Boeing-IIT National Aeromodelling Competition is an excellent platform that gives young aviation enthusiasts in India a chance to hone their skills,” said Salil Gupte, president, Boeing India. “I want to thank all the students for their participation. The prospect of these students in India creating the next big disruption in aerospace excites us. We are proud to be part of an ecosystem that inspires young minds to innovate,” added Gupte.
The zonal level rounds of the competition were held at IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Madras. The top three teams from each zone came to IIT Delhi to participate in the finals. In the run-up to the competition, Boeing conducted aeromodelling workshops across the IIT campuses, training students on designing and building radio-controlled airplanes.
Through initiatives such as the Boeing-IIT National Aeromodelling Competition, the Boeing HorizonX India Innovation Challenge and the Accelerated Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (AME) Apprenticeship programme, Boeing is actively developing an ecosystem that encourages innovation and skill development for aerospace in India.
Boeing’s partnerships with academia and the industry have resulted in the establishment of two research centers —Aerospace Network Research Consortium (ANRC) at Bangalore and National Centre for Aerospace Innovation and Research (NCAIR) with IIT Bombay. NCAIR has spurred technology entrepreneurship in aerospace manufacturing for the industry. Boeing has been able to promote cutting-edge research and technology in wireless networks, developing patents and several research papers at ANRC.
