The contest is open to students of all batches from all relevant institutes in India. The contest is open to all current UG and PG engineering students of any discipline from batch 2018, 2019, 2020. The teams need to abide by the following guidelines for the contest:

• The team size should be a maximum of 2 candidates.

• Teams should preferably have students from diverse engineering backgrounds.

• Please follow the specified timelines strictly.

• Teams are free to choose the category of products for prototype demo like apparel, foods, electronics, furniture etc.

• Teams are free to choose any physical or digital medium(smartphone, tablet, bot, software etc.) of their own choice for the prototype of this proposed solution

Shopper behaviour is changing every day and the advent of immersive technological innovations is modelling newer experiences that a shopper explores while buying a product. Avenues to shop a product are enormous and technology is influential in shaping up the way in which shopper decides to

buy a product - physical store, online, mobile, virtual stores and many other channels. The shopper expects technology to provide freedom to explore any product before purchase, such as:

• Kids wear a HoloLens and unbox the toy to decide which one is more fascinating.

• Susan scans the beauty soaps in a store with her smartphone and identifies the best soap to suit her skin type.

• Alex stands in front of a digital mirror and tries the different shirts to pick the best one for Christmas.

The enthusiastic contestants participating in this contest are required to design a smart solution for the shoppers, to help them experience innovative ways of shopping.

• The objective of this innovative solution is to help the shoppers in unboxing the limitless information that is associated with a product.

• Online shoppers have access to the whole stream of information while shopping any product which the shoppers lack inside a store.

• For buying the newly launched ‘OnePlus 5T’, we compare the prices in Amazon & Flipkart, look at the reviews and average rating, go to YouTube, and view the ‘Unboxing your One Plus 5T’ video many times. But many times we cannot have the same liberty when we go inside a store.

• The participants need to bridge this gap and help the shoppers in experiencing the extensive benefits of modern day digital revolution in the real physical store.

The teams are free to use different forms of technologies in designing the solution – image/video processing based product categorization and discovery, machine learning based shopper behaviour modelling and AR/VR based immersive product experience for the shopper etc.

The teams are also free to decide and design the physical form of this solution for the shoppers – smartphone app, hardware device, software etc.

The teams are also free to choose a mode for the solution demonstration. A sample proposed set of steps for demonstration could include the following (but not limited to):

1. Choose a product (e.g. shampoo, fruit, hair gel, vegetable, smartphone, shirt, etc.) for demonstration.

2. Identify, analyze and report the product information with the designed solution.

3. Maximum the number of ways in which a shopper could decide to buy a product should be demonstrated by the team, such as:

   1. Complete a customer's wardrobe based on the dress/shirt/pant they have picked by identifying the attributes.

   2. Price discovery eg. Compare the price of Dove and Normal Hair Conditioner in a physical store.

   3. Ingredient discovery eg. identify items which are sugar-free.

   4. Recipe discovery eg. 10 Indian Recipes that taste good with Ching’s Soy Sauce.

   5. Calorie Discovery eg. Each gram of Britannia cake contains ‘XX’ calories.

   6. Look-book eg. "Will this curtain look good with my home furniture? Let me superimpose and try."

   7. Origin of the products eg. "Did this apple really come from Kashmir?"

   8. And many, many more.

We would like to understand in detail the participants’ approach to the problem. Hence we would like to know the technology in use, use of any language/library for algorithms you may develop, how you code has been developed, test/experiment results and any other details you may provide.

• Registration Opens: 3rd February 2018

• Team Registration Closes: 12th February 2018

• Abstract Submission: 19th February 2018

• Announcement of Finalists: 21st Feb 2018

• Grand Finale (Solution Display): 4th March 2018

Winner Declaration

The top three teams (Winner and Runners-Up) will receive exciting prizes.

• 1st Prize: INR 25,000 for the Team

• 2nd Prize: INR 15,000 for the Team

• 3rd Prize: INR 10,000 for the Team

The key criteria that would be taken into account for selecting the winner would be:

• Uniqueness of the solution (20%)

• Accuracy of the solution (20%)

• Practically of shopper adoption and implementation (20%)

• Ease of user experience (20%)

• Detailing of the solution idea (20%)

• Variety of the products used for solution demonstration (25%)

Summer Internship

The top 2 winning teams will also get an exciting opportunity for a paid internship with the TCS Retail Innovation Lab - Nucleus_code, subject to fulfilling the applicable terms and conditions of the internship process. This paid summer internship will last a minimum of 6 weeks to a maximum of 8 weeks. As part of this implementation, you will be provided with the funding and support to implement the solution in Nucleus_code. World’s best retailers visiting the lab will get a chance to see your solutions and adapt it.

FAQs

1. Is there any restriction on the technology to be used for this solution?

No, there is no restriction on the technology to be used

2. Can I develop this solution only as a smartphone app?

No, there is no restriction. The end-solution could be a smartphone app or in any other physical or digital form, such as on Alexa, HoloLens etc. or any other software/hardware.

3. How many products should we use for the demo?

A minimum of 10-15 type of products is desired for the demonstration to show the power of the algorithm where it is able to recognize variations to discover. There is no restriction on the types of products to be used.

About Nucleus

TCS Nucleus_code is a next-gen ecosystem which envisions the future of Retail shopping. Nucleus_code acts as a centre of excellence and collaboration for the innovation process at the

TCS.

At Nucleus, we bring experiences to life by constantly working to conceptualise potential applications for disruptive technologies, build an innovation roadmap and rapidly prototype new technology in real-world. Here, we are trying to redefine the shopping experience to meet the changing needs of shoppers wherever they are - in a store, on our website, on their mobile device, bots, voice platforms etc. There are no limits to our imagination.

The teams at Nucleus_code design, design and build technology fueled products that bridge the gap between what's next and what's best. Apart from working within TCS, we collaborate with academic institutes, startups and accelerators around the world which gives us an edge and coming up with world leading designs and solutions.