Techno Innovation Challenge Cambodia is a competition program which students from different skills team up, design, build and pitch their innovative STEM-based solutions for solving a real world problem within 4 weeks duration, organized by Institute of Technology of Cambodia. Teams need to prove and test their ideas and prototypes through a customer interview and some business research to compete with other teams on Semi Final to advance to the final round. The first winning team will receive USD 1,250 in cash prize, the second winning team will receive USD 1,000 and the third winning team will receive USD 750.

The competition program is based on and supported by TEXAS A&M University College of Engineering where students focus on designing, building, and then selling a solution to a real world problem that has been provided by an industry or Agency partner. It is found to be the spark that gets students excited, inspired, and provides the energy to continue developing their solution in subsequent effort.

The challenge event will be four-weekend duration that is mostly performed over a weekend for universities students to team up, design, build and pitch their innovative solutions under one of the themes: Internet of Thing or e-Commerce (ICT), Education or Health, and Agriculture or Energy. It has a transformational effect in students by:

• Providing them necessary technology, materials, mentorship and training to support their innovation.
• Working in teams where they have to share ideas, brainstorm, and deliver the steps toward a solution in deadlines staged throughout the experience
• Meeting deadlines requiring teams to make decisions about their solution, determine a path toward implementation, and build the solution according to a schedule
• Developing and practicing effective communication skills as they “sell” their solution to a panel of judges as they compete for placement in the competition. Competition provides the focus and is like a pitch they will need to compete for funding for their project in industry or as a startup.
• Providing them a situation that is as much like their first job in a high performance team as possible in a short period in a university setting

TICC is to push students’ Innovation into next level by providing them an opportunity to perform design and acquire skills essential to becoming successful innovation leaders and thus realizing that they are capable of developing complete solutions.

After the challenge, student teams especially engineering students have minimum viable products (prototypes) that are working, useful, and validated from customer and business perspectives.