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Mohit Sethi, Natalia Berseneva, Vitalija Petrulaitiene, Joaquin Aldunate and Mikko Ruoho.

A team comprising five Aalto University students fared superbly at the recently concluded IXL Innovation Olympics organized by The Center for Innovation, Excellence and Leadership (IXL Center, USA).  Natalia Berseneva (Doctoral candidate at the department of Applied Physics), Vitalija Petrulaitiene (Doctoral candidate at the Department of Built Environment) Mohit Sethi (Doctoral candidate at the Department of Computer Science), Mikko Ruoho (Doctoral candidate at the Department of Micro- and Nanosciences) and Joaquin Aldunate (Master's degree student at the Department of Media) combined their expertise and designed a new HVAC solution for Ingersoll Rand, a global enterprise that provides HVAC systems.

'We utilised our expertise in technology, design and business, conducted primary and secondary research, held long video conferences with the company's representatives and also received a great deal of help from IXL Center's representatives. Our project was selected as second best,' Natalia Berseneva rejoices.

The IXL Innovation Olympics is a quarterly competition in which students from around the world participate. Several teams devise solutions for a challenge set by each company that has signed up. The competition runs for two months during which teams progress from their initial raw idea to a ready and tested business concept. The participating company then selects the two most promising solutions based on technical merits and commercialization opportunity.

'There are generally a large number of applicants for each Innovation Olympics, which means the competition for getting shortlisted is rather tough. This is the first time that a team from a Finnish university was selected for the competition,' Natalia Berseneva explains.