Blekinge Institute of Technology wins the 25/26 Ottonel Popesco Student Challenge

Each year, PEMA reaches out to third level education institutions across the world to take part in the Ottonel Popesco Student Challenge. The challenge poses a topic selected by PEMA members to students and invites them to put forward their ideas and solutions to be in with the chance of winning €2,000.

This year’s topic asked students to propose innovative ways to increase the ship-to-shore cycle, and PEMA received a number of creative, in-depth proposals from participants on this subject.

The submissions were narrowed down to four finalists who presented their projects to a panel of judges composed of PEMA’s Head of Technology Pat O’Leary, board member Lisette Stinis, and Automation & Control Technologies Committee vice chair Alois Recktenwald. The universities represented in the webinar final were Blekinge Institute of Technology (Sweden), Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (India) and KEDGE Business School (France). Ultimately – following a very competitive final – the team from Blekinge Institute of Technology were announced as the winners of the 25/26 edition of the Student Challenge.

The winning team led by team captain Praharsh Pulla included Thanu Reddy Pathipati, Kamaleswar Urranki and Sai Naga Krishna Kaushik Nerusu who proposed a predictive coordination layer that eliminates dead time between STS crane moves. Their presentation was accompanied by a 3D simulator that demonstrated the system in practice and in scenarios such as a late truck or sensor dropout. The proposal detailed reduced wait time per crane, as well as savings per crane per year by reducing idle time effectively.

Alongside their supervisor Dr. Lawrence Henesey, the team were presented with their cheque by PEMA’s Safety & Environment Committee vice chair Beatrice Björk at Blekinge Tekniska Högskola (BTH) ahead of their graduation ceremony. BTH’s Vice Chancellor Henric Johnson and Head of the Computer Science Department Bo Peterson were also present for the prize giving to acknowledge the excellent calibre of work submitted by their students.

Thank you to all universities who took part in this year’s Student Challenge, well done to our finalists and congratulations once again to our winning team. We wish you all the best with your studies, and with your future careers in the industry.

The topic for the 26/27 Ottonel Popesco Student Challenge will be announced during the first semester of the academic year. Learn more here.