Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

The second Build-a-Bot Challenge for IBM RPA built on the success of the first and we saw enormous participation, with more than 2,100 sign-ups, 70 projects envisioned, and 35 IBM Robotic Process Automation applications submitted. We saw participation from 116 countries and engagement from IBM Business Partners and Customers as well as many students.  In fact, of the 6 Winners, three were from IBM Business Partners and 3 were built by students. The next generation is on it!

 The 6 Winning applications were announced Tuesday, February 15 in a live webcast, available on Youtube. If you would like to see the 12 Finalists and then hear the 6 Winners announced, you can watch below:

Here are the Winners:

First Prize ($10,000) - Congratulations to Salem Hadim, Katikey Chawla, Ujjawal Mishra, Shivam Pandey and Arup Datta of Prolifics for winning First Place in the 2021-2022 IBM Build-a-Bot Challenge. Their solution, called IntelliDocs, Automates the Prior Authorization Process in Healthcare, a tedious manual process and a great candidate for IBM RPA.

Second Prize ($5,000) – During Covid, many areas of the world pivoted to remote learning, but in regions with low Internet availability, this meant teachers were broadcast over television, with no way for students to interact. Student developer Thiloshon Nagarajah created TVEd, an IBM RPA application that can augment broadcast teaching with real-time interaction. TVEd enables students to get more information about the topic, submit questions to the teacher, and even prioritize questions (i.e. aggregating similar questions) for the teacher to respond.

Third Prize ($2,000)  Hope - Digital Depression Assistant is an application to assist companies, schools and institutions to survey and recognize people at-risk for depression and even suicide within their communities, and then offer help and support if needed. Congratulations to Surabhi Baghel and Mayuri Wagh of Prolifics for this important solution to a worldwide social problem.

Most Innovative ($1,000) – Sameh Abdalla and Rudolph Oosthuizen from NOVADOC, an IBM Business Partner, developed Smart Survey Bot. This is a workplace improvement that helps organizations develop, distribute, and analyze surveys to manage customer and employee satisfaction, product enhancements, and more.

The Best Use Of Technology Award ($1000)  Peruvian industrial engineering student Sheynin Yossymar Checmapoco Paucar took on the Covid-era challenge of managing entrance to facilities, based on health and vaccine status. His Automatic Recognition of Vaccinated People with IBM is an IBM RPA-run device that functions as an automated gateway to a building, theater, restaurant or stadium. It incorporates a thermometer to read a person’s temperature, a scanner for their ID card, and a lookup for Vaccine status, all orchestrated by IBM RPA.  When a person seeking entry passes the requirements, the gate lifts and allows entry. And Sheynin built a prototype!  Congratulations! What a great start to your career!

Best Team Spirit ($1,000) – This special prize was won by a team from City University of New York (CUNY). Three students - Steven Moukhametzianov, Abdullah Shuiaibi, and Tsimur Ustsinovich - put their heads together and came up with Your CUNY Tutor, an IBM RPA application to help support CUNY’s mission of a quality education for all New York City residents, regardless of income. Their Bot offers 24/7 Tutoring and easy ways to locate the books and other resources they need to succeed.  Their project grew out of research and student surveys to identify the pain points they wanted to address. Congratulations!

We’ll be featuring all the winners in upcoming blogs and webcasts. Congratulations to all who participated. You have shown ingenuity and creativity and - in many cases - discovered new uses for IBM Robotic Process Automation.

You can see all 35 submitted projects, with detailed descriptions and video demos by starting here