PepsiCo awards US$ 100,000 to Change the Game winners from India

PepsiCo’s ‘Change the Game’ campus challenge invited millennials to share innovative business ideas for sustainable plastic packaging and recycling, in line with the company’s Performance with Purpose vision.

The India winners, Tushar Vishnoi and Utkarsh Garg from IMT Ghaziabad, went on to compete with winners from other regions at the final round in Dubai and have been awarded a grant of US$ 100,000 to bring their idea to life. The India winners have also received an opportunity to start their career at PepsiCo India, as Management Trainees.

The IMT Ghaziabad team’s winning idea is a low-cost waste management solution capable of handling 18 tonnes of plastic annually per equipment unit, while helping to save time and effort. It involves using recovered plastic in multiple applications that not only create new revenue streams and savings but also social entrepreneurship opportunities that are in line with the PepsiCo’s 2025 Sustainability Agenda.

India winners Tushar and Utkarsh said, “The project needs intensive R&D to have a solid foundation. The implementation will require us to first, study the technologies deeper with the R&D team and modify them to fit our proposed business ecosystem with the government guidelines in mind. After gathering the design specifications, we will have several prototyping and testing stages before we formalize everything for industrial grade manufacturing. Post that, we will refine our business model with the help of the senior management to get the best out of this initiative once we go live.”

PepsiCo’s ‘Change the Game’ competition witnessed 11,000 students from top B-schools in India putting their minds to make the world a better place by presenting solutions for sustainability.