Students from Turkey's Yildiz Technical University win the third edition of Indra Future Minds Competition

Three students from Turkey's Yildiz Technical University, Vildan Nurdag, Necati Cihan Camgoz and Suha Boncukçu, are the winners of the third edition of the international university event, the Indra Future Minds Competition, organised by the multinational based on multiculturalism and the new work methods available to us thanks to information technologies. For the first time the final phase of the competition was held in Brazil, specifically at Indra's offices in São Paulo, where the students had to analyse and propose solutions for actual Indra projects carried out in Brazil.

The Turkish students competed in the final phase against participants from the University of the Philippines Diliman, second place, having previously confronted teams from the Technical University of Madrid (Spain) and the University of São Paulo (Brazil) in the semi-final.

In the final the students worked on a case for one of the world's largest energy groups, Petrobras, resolving a problem related to the energy giant's implementation of an Indra solution for the management of energy generation plants, inGen.

In the semi-final, the Turkish and Philippine teams triumphed thanks to their proposals in the scope of mobility and smart cities, based on an urban transport project developed by Indra for the city of Curitiba, an international reference point in sustainable urban traffic management.

The final prize for the three winning students consists of incorporation into the subsidiary of the consultancy and technology multinational in the country of their choice, upon completion of their studies. This will provide the students with international experience from the start of their professional careers, developing the type of global profile that companies are currently seeking.

The prize-giving ceremony included the participation of the members of the jury Maíra Habimorad, managing partner of the Brazilian company Talentos; Valéria dos Santos Boquimpani, Petrobras's director of Thermal Power Business Solutions; Edinilson José Kovaleski, IEESA's sales director; Horacio Sabino, Indra Brazil's CEO; and Hussein Keshavjee, Indra Brazil's director of Energy and Utilities. The multinational was also represented by Edenilson Fleischman, Indra Brazil's senior vice president; Luis Zamora, Indra's director of International Human Resources; Adriana Zanni, Indra' Brazil's director of Human Resources; and Peter Koster, Indra's Brazil's director of Innovation and Quality.

Edenilson Fleischmann, Indra Brazil's senior vice president, commented during the prize-giving ceremony that "innovation is the result of people's talent and we must meet the challenge of attracting the best talent from all around the world". "This international competition provides us with the chance to meet talented young people who share our values".

The event featured a performance by the "Meninos do Morumbi" Band, a group made up of more than 4,000 children and adolescents from the city of São Paulo that uses music to generate options and minimise the economic and social differences inherent to the city's most disadvantaged population.

The most international edition of the competition

The Indra Future Minds Competition started with 16 teams made up of final year students taking technical degrees, such as telecommunications engineering, industrial engineering and IT, from 11 different countries. In the initial phase the teams were required to solve various problems proposed by Indra based on its actual projects, ranging from the design of a new health system for a country or an advanced free-flow electronic tolling solution to sustainable building projects, business analytics or the communication of events to the public. This first phase was virtual and multicultural, that is, the students formed teams and had to collaborate by technological means with students from other countries. Of the 16 teams, only four were chosen to present their solutions in person in the final stage in Brazil.

In this third edition of the competition, the most international held so far, the participating universities were Mackenzie Presbyterian University, the São Paulo State Technological Colleges and the University of São Paulo (Brazil); the Julio Garavito Colombian School of Engineering and the National University of Colombia (Colombia); the Andrés Bello National University (Chile); the Technical University of Madrid and the UPC-BarcelonaTech (Spain); De La Salle University and the University of the Philippines Diliman (the Philippines); the University of Salerno (Italy); the Technological University of Mexico (Mexico); Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (Peru); the Science Faculty of the University of Lisbon (Portugal); the Czech Technical University in Prague (the Czech Republic); and Yildiz Technical University (Turkey).

Commitment to innovation and talent

Innovation is the cornerstone of Indra's business and sustainability and lies at the heart of what differentiates its solutions and services offering. Innovation is based on talent and accordingly the recruitment, development and retention of talent is a fundamental area for Indra's sustainability and a strategic priority. The company has relationships with more than 200 universities and research centres through chairs, agreements and R&D projects, allowing the company to attract professionals and access new technologies.

Indra is one of the leading multinational consulting and technology firms in Europe and Latin America. Innovation is the cornerstone of its business and sustainability, having allocated more than €550 million to R&D&i in the last three years, making it one of the leading companies in Europe in its sector in terms of investment. With sales approaching €3,000 million, nearly 60% of its income is from the international market. The company employs 42,000 professionals and has customers in 128 countries.