A Warwick undergraduate from the School of Engineering, has received official recognition as a top contributor to 2009’s Smarter Planet Jam – a global conversation to discuss how technology and business can help build “A Smarter Planet”.

Arvind Aradhya was named as a merit award recipient for his contribution to the global crowdsourcing event - an honour bestowed on only 20 out of almost 2,000 students.

The IBM-supported event was a massive brainstorming session in which students and faculty staff from nearly 200 universities across 40 different countries came together to think about ways to create a smarter planet.

Attending students were asked to think up solutions for many of today’s pressing issues. This included the discussion of potential ways to protect the future of the Earth’s environment, reform possibilities for health care, and the use of information technology in the construction of new urban environments that are both attractive and stable.

Arvind said: “I think that when facilitated by an event such as the Jam, the exchange of ideas and the social networking among driven, like-minded people truly does contribute to solving the problems we're faced with today, and more importantly, recognizing those that we'll have to tackle tomorrow."

Arvind is two years into a four-year electrical engineering degree after gaining a place at the University through Scholar Hunt: UK, an Indian television programme run by the widely-respected news channel NDTV.

• For more information about the jam, and to read the report, visit IBM’s Smarter Planet Jam page