Aveva announces 2021 winners of global academic program competition for chemical engineering students

Dubai, UAE – AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software, driving digital transformation and sustainability, today announced the winners of the 2021 AVEVA Academic Program Competition, which was open to students in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and European Union. Entrants were judged on several criteria including the quality, completeness, and precision of their project entries, as well as their Process Engineering and Simulation abilities. Overall winners gain the unique opportunity to conduct a three-month internship at the AVEVA offices in Lake Forest, California, or receive the equivalent of $3,000 in prize money.

The AVEVA Academic Program Competition, now in its third year, is designed to provide chemical engineering students with the unique opportunity to develop their engineering skills. Students are invited to solve real-world engineering problems utilizing AVEVA Process Simulation, an integrated platform encompassing the complete engineering lifecycle of design, simulation, and training, developed to deliver the next generation of engineers. It is an easy to learn and use software so students with no prior experience are also encouraged to enter the competition.

The Competition Winners:

In North America:

• Best overall winners and also winners of the Best Dynamics category - Dexter Alarcon and Jesse Williamson of the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
• Best Steady State title - Mason Meadows, Thomas Mathwig, Gray Matthews and Josh Leger from the University of Mississippi.
• Best Economics title - Wilson Medina from the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

In UK/EU:

• Best Overall entry - Lea Scharli and Oliver Hoppchen from the University of Applied Science Mannheim, Germany
• Best Steady State - Benedikt Steinbach from the University of Applied Science Mannheim, Germany
• Best Economics - Aliya Magazova from TU Dortmund, Germany
• Best Dynamics - Carlo Cortellini and Alessandro Calisse from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

The 2021 competition was split into three parts, with deadlines spread across three dates – February 15^th, March 15^th and April 15^th 2021. This enabled the students to enter the competition multiple times, while also supporting their academic coursework and enabling eager participants to tackle a new and different project on three different occasions. As a result, contestants gained a wide range of skills, knowledge, and practical experience using AVEVA’s Process Simulation, by working on a unique project for each phase.

Winner and Judges Commend AVEVA’s Academic Competition

Dexter Alarcon, one of the overall winners from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, commented, “The most unique aspect of both this design competition and AVEVA Process Simulation software we used, was the opportunity to work on a dynamic simulation as falls outside the scope of our curricular design and process control classes. The chance to work on developing and testing the control system for a distillation column was as exciting as it was challenging. As we look to launch our professional careers as engineers, we know the skills acquired from this challenge will be extremely valuable as we continue to seek and solve many more exciting chemical engineering challenges in the future.”

Marina Velazquez, Senior Principal Quality and Assurance Engineer, AVEVA, one of the competition judges also commented, “As we all know, what we learn in school is just the fundamental knowledge for any vocation. We really learn when we are actively working and participating in industry. The AVEVA Academic competition enables students to see the problems from the eyes of a graduated, working engineer, as well as utilize their own problem-solving skills.”

Neil Forster, Senior Manager Customer Support, AVEVA, another of the judges, added, “This competition has been an excellent opportunity for Chemical Engineering students to use AVEVA Process Simulation to solve the kind of real-life problems they will be presented with when they graduate. It was very encouraging to see so many high-quality, enthusiastic entrants, although that made for some tough decisions when it came to selecting the final list of prize winners.”

Encouraging Innovation from the Next Generation of Engineers

The AVEVA Academic Program Competition plays a significant role in helping to provide growth and development opportunities for future engineers. AVEVA Process Simulation promotes attaining organizational efficiencies through minimizing operating costs, improving designs that reduce process utility costs, and reducing CapEx costs by optimizing equipment size. 

“AVEVA’s goal is to support the innovation coming from future engineers – so we created these competitions academic to ensure that students and graduates are able to deploy their capabilities into real-life scenarios. Since we started these competitions in 2018, we have seen entries from some of the brightest and highly talented students from more than 50 renowned universities across North America and Europe. Having access to innovative AVEVA software empowers the students, the future engineerswith rewarding and as well as practical experience. We continue to be highly impressed with the quality of entries we receive every year,” commented Mihaela Hahne, Global Program Manager, Academic at AVEVA.

© Press Release 2021