New Delhi: Seven IIT-Hyderabad students won the 2018 Samsung Innovation Awards for developing a self-learning bot, a low-cost platform for personal healthcare and a smartphone-based early detection method for oral cancers.

They were chosen out of the 22 teams who submitted entries. The winning projects were selected for their degree of implementation, prototype implementation, final product realisation, business and market impact and the demonstration.

Kannan Chandrasekaran, who developed the self-learning bot that can read through and understand data quickly, won the first prize of Rs 1.5 lakh at the eighth edition of the awards.

The bot can respond to queries on data in any form or language, making it easy for users to find information.

V. Sushmitha, Anand Kadu and Sushmee Badhulika received the second prize for developing a low cost platform for personal healthcare — a model that enables easy accessibility and low cost healthcare in remote parts of India.

It is enabled by easily available devices such as a smartphone and could be mounted on a wearable device as well. The three shared a Rs 1.2 lakh cash prize.

G. Hanu Phani Ram, Praveen Kumar Poola and Prasanth Panta won the third prize of Rs 80,000 for their idea of using a smartphone-based method to study cells for early detection of oral cancers.

“Students of IIT-Hyderabad have submitted powerful ideas that made shortlisting winners a difficult yet delightful challenge,” Aloknath De, Senior Vice President, Samsung R&D Institute, India – Bangalore (SRI-B), said in a statement on Friday.

“Samsung has been supporting deep-tech innovation over the years and we believe such opportunities alongside joint courses and emerging technology labs at top institutions will help take our vision forward,” De said.

Conceptualised in 2011, Samsung Innovation Awards aims to recognise and reward innovations that have the potential to revolutionise everyday living.

For the 2018 edition, students were invited to submit their innovative ideas in Internet of Things (IoT) and related technology areas.

Of the 22 entries that made it to the list, seven projects were selected as finalists by professors from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Hyderabad and researchers from SRI-B.

The other four finalists received awards of merit from Samsung.