Newgen Software, in partnership with the AI Club at IIT Madras, has announced the winners of OIEquestra: The Quest for What’s Next, a nationwide innovation challenge aimed at encouraging students to develop technology solutions for enterprise applications.
The challenge brought together more than 1,800 teams from over 30 IITs, NITs and leading engineering institutions across India. Following multiple rounds of evaluation, mentoring and solution development, 140 teams advanced to the final stages.
IIT Madras’ First Byte team emerged as the winner, followed by Wizards from IIT Roorkee as the first runner-up and SheCodes from Chennai Institute of Technology (CIT) as the second runner-up. The winning teams received prizes worth lakhs for their innovation, technical excellence and ability to translate ideas into enterprise applications.
Rooted in Newgen’s philosophy of ‘Ahead of What’s Ahead’, OIEquestra encouraged participants to explore applications of AI beyond conventional use cases and develop solutions addressing real-world business challenges. The initiative was designed to connect academic learning with enterprise requirements and promote collaboration between industry and academia.
Participants developed their solutions on NewgenONE, the company’s unified low-code platform for orchestrating intelligent enterprises. The platform combines process automation, content services, communications management and AI capabilities, enabling students to build structured enterprise solutions. Through the challenge, participants explored how intelligence can be integrated into business workflows to support decision-making, customer experiences and operational efficiency.
Runki Goswami, Chief Marketing Officer, Newgen Software, said, “At Newgen, innovation has always been about looking beyond the present and creating possibilities for the future. As India moves towards the vision of Viksit Bharat @ 2047, our progress will increasingly depend on our ability to build, innovate, and develop solutions that address the challenges of tomorrow. This calls for more than technological advancement. It calls for an ecosystem that encourages curiosity, nurtures talent, and turns ideas into impact. Through OIEquestra, we wanted to take Newgen’s innovation ethos beyond our own ecosystem and create a platform where young minds could experiment, challenge conventions, and build solutions for real-world enterprise needs. It is our way of connecting Newgen’s innovation DNA with India’s next generation of technology builders. Being Ahead of What’s Ahead is not just about anticipating the future; it is about empowering people to create it.”
The evaluation process involved Newgen’s product and technology leadership, including Varun Goswami, Sanjay Pandey and Dinesh Parikh. Entries were assessed on innovation, business relevance, quality of user journeys, technical feasibility and potential enterprise impact. The final selection of winners was made by Pramod Kumar, Chief Growth Officer, Newgen Software.
Commenting on the conclusion of the initiative, Pramod Kumar said, “OIEquestra has reinforced a belief that is central to the future of enterprise innovation: AI creates its greatest value not when it simply demonstrates what technology can do, but when it transforms what businesses can achieve. What stood out was the ability of participants to look beyond individual AI capabilities and envision solutions where AI, automation, workflows, and human intelligence come together to solve complex, real-world challenges.
Through NewgenONE, we wanted to give young innovators more than a technology platform; we wanted to give them the canvas to turn ambitious ideas into enterprise-ready possibilities. The ingenuity, courage to experiment, and depth of problem-solving demonstrated by these teams are a powerful reminder that the next wave of intelligent enterprises will be shaped by those who dare to think beyond the obvious. And OIEquestra is just the beginning of that journey.”
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