Two Cal State Long Beach engineering students finished as one of the top teams Friday in an international engineering and business competition that took place in Paris.
The competition, called Go Green In The City, featured CSULB students Pushpender Singh, a senior electronics engineering major, and Manmeen Kaur, a junior electronics engineering major.
Go Green in the City is an international case competition for university-level engineering and business students, Kaur said. The goal was to come up with an innovative and clever solution for one of the five essential urban issues: home, retail, hospital, university and water.
Singh and Kaur sought inspiration from Walter Martinez, a part-time lecturer in CSULB’s engineering technology department. Their final project proposed a way to harness electricity from freeway traffic.
“Our team got shortlisted to be one of the top 100 teams from 600 teams,” Kaur said. “That is 1,200 students from around the world.”
During the second part of the competition, Singh and Kaur submitted an 800-word summary of their project, which landed them in the final group of 25 teams in Paris.
“Although we couldn’t make it to be the winning team, we believe that coming so far in the competition was a great opportunity in itself,” Kaur said. “We got to meet executives from the company Schneider Electric and network. It was an amazing experience.”
While in Paris, Singh and Kaur competed against teams from nations like Germany, Brazil and China.
“The best thing about the event was we came across people with different culture, educational backgrounds,” Kaur said. “It was an amazing experience to present our idea to a panel of judges and get their feedback.”
Schneider Electric, the company that organizes the competition, has held similar events in the past. Go Green In The City also took place in Paris last year.
The winners of the competition came from Brazil, while the runner-up teams came from the United States and Turkey.
“We think Go Green In The City is a great opportunity for students to excel,” Kaur said. “This competition has definitely made us much more confident and we will always cherish those three days in Paris.”
Singh and Kaur hope to expand on their project idea and develop a system that could actually solve one of the United State’s leading energy problems.
“We are very happy to make our parents, professors and the university proud,” Kaur said. “Without their support, we believe it would have not been possible.”