Canadian Middle and High School Students Sweep TCS North American Digital Innovation Competition

Seven Canadian students from the Greater Toronto Area have advanced from the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) goIT North American Innovator of the Year competition to the next major event in the series. All are vying to become the TCS goIT Global Innovator of the Year this spring.

The 2023-2024 goIT Global Innovator of the Year competition is the second annual culmination of TCS’ year-round efforts to advance innovation and global problem solving as priorities for young minds. The competition is an integral part of the TCS goIT (Go Innovate Together) program, which provides K-12 students with the confidence to develop the skills and mindset to enable their pursuit of 21^st-century careers. Through design workshops, innovation contests, custom mentorship experiences, and more, goIT benefits students around the world. The program inspires them to pursue careers in STEM by experiencing first-hand how technology can help improve quality of life and make the planet more sustainable.

“The goIT Global Innovator of the Year competition helps us teach students new skills, boost their confidence, and prepare them for careers of the future,” said Lina Klebanov, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, North America, TCS.

About 12,400 North American students between the ages of 8 and 17 submitted 4,096 innovations that addressed one or more of the U.N.’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals before the December 31, 2023, competition deadline. A large team employed a formal scoring process to narrow the entries down to six finalists, who then pitched their concepts to judges during the February 8 event. Each finalist was judged on the quality of understanding and research, the concepts or solutions developed, overall presentation , and more.

After the presentations, judges from TCS identified the three award-winning digital innovations to advance to the next level, driven by their high total scores. They were:

• Winner and the North American goIT Innovator of the Year:
  • Aarushi B., age 17, a grade 12 student from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
    • Concept: RECA, an environment- and climate-focused app that promotes recycling and carbon emissions reduction through incentive programs for both individuals and businesses.
• Global competition finalists and North American contest runners up:
  • Casey S., age 13, a grade 8 student from Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    • Concept: “Waste Not, Want Not,” an app which uses the power of artificial intelligence to make food collection, distribution, and donation fast, efficient, and beneficial to all stakeholders.
  • The Check Up Team, six 15-year-old grade 9 students from Toronto, Ontario, Canada — Eman F., Kiera M., Edeoyenmwen N., Alishba A., Kayna D., and Ibrahim H.
    • Concept: Check Up, an app that brings a variety of personal health information together in one convenient place to make healthcare management easy, efficient, and effective.

All will present their innovations again, along with finalists from Latin America, on March 5, as scores are tallied for entries in all TCS geographies across the globe. Next, judges will identify the student or team who will be named the “goIT Global Innovator of the Year.”

“While only three apps from North America are moving on in the competition, all six proposals presented to judges on February 8 were admired for their ingenuity, research, and presentation quality,” said Adam Hartley, TCS North American goIT Innovator of the Year team lead. “Just getting to that point was a significant accomplishment and each idea had the potential to either transform someone’s life or advance related sustainable development goals.”

In selecting the North American winner, judges appreciated Aarushi B.’s deep research and the creativity of RECA’s reward-and-incentive system for increasing recycling and reducing carbon emissions. One judge also gave Aarushi credit for the many meaningful connections she made for users with local government and even industry.

“Congratulations to all participants and especially to our finalists,” said Klebanov. “We’ll be cheering you on as you compete with others around the world in the coming weeks. Whether you win or not, we’re looking forward to your future leadership.”

For more information about goIT, visit https://tcsempowers.tcsapps.com/amer/goIT.

ABOUT TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES (TCS)

Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that has been partnering with many of the world’s largest businesses in their transformation journeys for over 55 years. Its consulting-led, cognitive powered, portfolio of business, technology and engineering services and solutions is delivered through its unique Location Independent Agile™ delivery model, recognized as a benchmark of excellence in software development.

A part of the Tata group, India's largest multinational business group, TCS has over 608,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants in 55 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $27.9 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023, and is listed on the BSE and the NSE in India. TCS' proactive stance on climate change and award-winning work with communities across the world have earned it a place in leading sustainability indices such as the MSCI Global Sustainability Index and the FTSE4Good Emerging Index. For more information, visit www.tcs.com.

About goIT

TCS’ Go Innovate Together program (goIT) is TCS’ flagship STEM education program. Focusing on digital innovation and career readiness, goIT engages students from diverse backgrounds with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) subjects and computer science, design thinking and digital innovation. The program offers an industry-developed, customizable curriculum that teaches students the 21st century skills necessary for a career in technology. Lessons cover topics including design thinking, rapid prototyping, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and more. Visit https://tcsempowers.tcsapps.com/amer/goIT for more information.