Noida: To harness and nurture best talents in Noida, the IBM has announced “The Great Mind Challenge”, a pioneering nationwide software development and research contest.

This contest will present an exclusive opportunity to engineering students for developing innovative solutions using open standards-based IT tools under gruelling real time situations.Thrilled over this kind of opportunity Mayank Agarwal, a software engineer said, "It is great opportunity for all the young minds. I will participate in it as I think I have the potential to be a winner of the competition”.

The registration for the competition will be done till October 31. Almost 2000 colleges are expected to participate in this contest. The competition is open to graduates and undergraduates enrolled in engineering, computer science, and other IT-related fields from accredited colleges and universities. More than 400 hundreds of workshops will be conducted during these six months period. Even the students of final year of engineering can participate. And the winner of the competition will get a placement as well as sponsor for his innovative project.

The contest this year will also introduce the Global Entrepreneurship Initiative to provide the next generation of entrepreneurs with a no-charge access to industry-specific technologies and consequently capture emerging business opportunities in fast-growing industries such as energy and utilities, healthcare, telecommunications and government. Under the new program, Design, Coding, User interface will be added to test technical skills of the students.