One day. 23 teams. Close to 500 applicants from across India. That was ProdXPulse 2026, the AI Product Fest CMR University hosted with the Institute of Product Leadership on 10th July at its Lakeside campus
ProdXPulse 2026 was organised by students of the Technology MBA and MBA programmes, in association with the Institute of Product Leadership and CMR University. Vice Chancellor Dr H. B. Raghavendra, Prof. Dr Suvvaru Surya Prasada Rao, the Dean of the School of Management, Dr. Kannan N, the Dean of the School of Engineering and Technology, Dr. K. E. Prakash, the Registrar and senior university leadership attended the event, alongside jury members and chief guests from Google, Microsoft, Adobe and Pegasystems.
Two competitions, one day
The AI Product Design Competition was the centrepiece, challenging 23 shortlisted teams to build and present AI-powered solutions to real human problems. Teams came from IIM Bangalore, IIT (ISM) Dhanbad, IIIT Bhubaneswar, Christ University Bangalore, Presidency University Bangalore, Scaler, Dayananda Sagar University, Chennai Institute of Technology, Rajalakshmi Institute of Technology, Osmania University, CMR University and others.
Running alongside it was the Art of Business Storytelling Challenge, where participants turned a single image into a business narrative on the spot, judged on creativity, structure and communication.
Participants also attended the “How I AI” workshop, conducted by Rakesh Mondal, Director, AI Product & Design at InovarTech, covering practical AI use in product development.
The jury
The AI Product Design Competition was judged by Dwij Chatterjee, Principal Product Marketing Manager, Adobe, Rishabh Dhingra, AI Product Manager, Google, Sandeep Manepalli Gururaj, Senior Product Manager, Pega, Ashita Roy, Senior Consultant, Product Designer, VISA, Niranjan Maski, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft, Shine Vijayan, Director, AI Platforms & Strategy, Novartis and Aaditya Nigam, Product Manager, SAP.
Rishabh Dhingra, reflecting on the day, said the technology was rarely the hard part. “What distinguished the strong pitches was product thinking. Who is this for? What are we actually solving and why now?” he said.
Sandeep Manepalli Gururaj was impressed by the range of problems tackled. “From healthcare and education to sustainability and everyday productivity, the diversity of ideas was truly inspiring. Some teams had already made remarkable progress, validating their ideas, engaging with users and building polished prototypes,” he noted.
The winners
The first place went to Anurag Padhi, Ranish Srivastava and Anubha Panda for Mitti Mantra, an AI farm-intelligence platform for Indian smallholder farmers. The product builds a verifiable digital identity for each farm, turning farmer data into information that banks, insurers and government schemes can act on. “We built an AI product for farmers who’ve never been asked what they need,” Padhi said.
The Special Jury Award went to Sathwika Abburi, Prajwala Baganavar and K Divyasree, whose project addressed a real-world social problem through Artificial Intelligence. “Among 23 teams from leading institutions across India, we had the opportunity to design, build and present an AI-powered solution addressing a real-world challenge,” Abburi shared.
Dr. Kiran Kumari, Director of Innovation, Prof. Dr Suvvaru Surya Prasad Rao, Dean and Dr. Purna Prasad, Director of the School of Management, commended the organisers and participants.
CMR University, ProdXPulse 2026 was an extension of a pattern, as its B.Tech, M.Tech, M.Sc. IT and MCA programmes treat AI as a core skill rather than an elective. With participation from institutions like IIM Bangalore and IIT (ISM) Dhanbad and a jury drawn from Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Pega, VISA, SAP and Novartis, the fest positioned itself as more than a campus competition, closer to a working preview of how India’s next AI product builders are already thinking.
