Team Haya, focused on designing, fabrication and testing of race cars started the year with stellar performances in BAJA SAE 2020, Enduro Student India 2020 and Formula Bharat 2020. The BAJA SAE 2020, Natrax, Pithampur held from Jan 22-26 inspired brilliant minds to come up with mind boggling innovations and developments to create a better version of vehicles. Team Haya bagged 19th overall all India ranking, 3rd in South India and 2nd in Karnataka. The team bagged all India rankings of 5th in Manoeuvrability, 8th in Endurance, 10th in Design and 34th in Virtuals. Enduro Student India 2020, an off-road student design competition that tests engineering students on practical aspect of building something with their own hands and team management was held at Talegaon, Pune from Feb 6-10. Team Haya put up top-notch performance to emerge all India 1st in SprintX, was adjudged all India 2nd in cost with 1st in South India; all India 3rd in Business with 3rd in South India and 2nd in Karnataka; all India 4th in Endurance with 3rd in South India and 2nd in Karnataka; all India 4th in Acceleration with 3rd in South India and 2nd in Karnataka; all India 6th in manoeuvrability with 3rd in South India and 2nd in Karnataka. Formula Bharat 2020, the engineering design competition in which students from colleges and universities all over the country, compete with a life-size formula-style vehicle was held at Kari Motor Speedway, Coimbatore from Jan 22-26. Team Haya logged impressive leads to come 5th pan India out of 56 teams, 2nd in South India and 1st in Karnataka; came 3rd in Cost and Manufacturing event with 1st in South India; came 4th in Business Presentation with 3rd in South India and 2nd in Karnataka; came 4th in Endurance with 2nd in South India and 1st in Karnataka; came 4th in Autocross with 2nd in South India and 2nd in Karnataka and also pocketed the Best Driver Award. Team Haya is geared to raise the bar on innovation in design and excellence in fabrication in the upcoming competitions.

Formula Bharat 2020 is a Formula SAE event, which is an intensive student design competition. The electric category of the contest covered mechanical inspection, accumulator inspection, electrical inspection, and brake test. The teams were entitled to points from static events such as presentation on costs, business plan presentation and design. Of the Seventeen teams that were eligible to participate in the event after the completion of reports submission phase, Vega racing electric was ranked 9th overall in the electric category of FB2020 held from January 21-27, 2020. 

The students got an opportunity to develop a game in 3D. The workshop focused on game development using Unity 3d platform. The prerequisites for the workshop were familiarity with Unity 3d and Visual Studio Code. The workshop covered all aspects from coding in C# to the exploration of Unity editor and asset stores. The Unity Workshop conducted by Sourabh Sood, Software Engineer at Moonfrog Labs on Feb 5, 2020.

The Students of Hospitality and Event Management won multiple prizes at Outlook 2020 organised by Oriental School of Hotel Management, Waynad. Ghagan was declared best manager, Pooviah won first prize in flower arrangement, Sandeep and Pooviah won second place in vegetable carving, Krithi and Dhruva won second place product marketing, and Vijaylakshmi, Keerthana, Sandeep, Gynanesh and Dhruva won second place in culturals.

The annual ideation competition brought forth innovative ideas about using technology for social change that included water conservation, traffic management, sustainability, AI/ML in Agriculture. First place, was won by team BogARt of Shreya and Harshita, PES University students of CSE, for their idea to develop a VR application to create objects and environment that would help people face their worst fears and overcome them. Second place was won by team Yoga Guide consisting of Khushei, PES University student of CSE, for her idea of using point based motion tracking for teaching Yoga. Third place was won by team Agriculture Upliftment of Venkat and Jayant, PES University students of ECE, for using a tech stack to help farmers with crop growth and farming optimisations. Team Virtual Companies, consisting of Akshay SP, PES University student of CSE won a consolation prize for the idea of creating virtual environments to simulate companies. Team Old is Gold, consisting of Samridhi of PES University student of CSE, that was about helping the aged community participate in social development programs won a consolation prize. The jury members included Mr. Vinod Paranjpe, from Nokia’s University Collaboration Team, Dr. RG Kulkarni, Distinguished Professor, Dr. Radhakrishnan, Chairperson of the S&H Department, Dr Saumya Adhikari, Professor in the ECE Department and Prof. M Rajasekar, Associate Professor in the ECE Department. PES Innovation Lab (formerly the Microsoft Innovation lab) conducted Incito 2020, annual ideation competition open for all engineering colleges, during Jan-Feb 2020.

Rasa Prashne 2019, quiz program for school children from Vajarahalli, Srinagar, Veerabhadranagar, Tataguni, Muthurayanagar was organised by the students in the Biotechnology department. Three rounds of quiz were conducted on general knowledge, literature and sports and entertainment. The winners were felicitated with books and gifts. The program was held on the campus on Jan 18, 2020.

Students got an opportunity to watch the acclaimed documentary Wild Karnataka on large screen. The audience took pride in the fact that one of the film-makers was Kalyan Varma, mechanical engineering graduate of 2001 batch of PES University. Over 1200 students enjoyed the beautiful visuals and never-seen-before perspective on the wildlife of Karnataka. The screening was organised by Pixels Photography club on Feb 11, 2020.

Students got an opportunity to understand the safety and hygiene standards expected by the government for a well functioning industry. The training helped them know more about the best way to process food and raw materials in an industry kitchen. The training for students of hospitality and event management program was held on Feb 7, 2020

Om Malviya and Jignesh Vasoya of TEZOS India Foundation shared their insights about Blockchain. Tezos, a blockchain that can evolve through self-amendment, aims to drive social, political, and economic innovation on a global scale. The participants got hands-on experience on TEZOS tools. The workshop was organised by IEEE team on Feb 9, 2020.

Dr. Jessy Nair, Associate Professor, MBA Department received the award for Best Paper in Pedagogical Innovations for the paper titled Co-creation for continuous learning at MARKCON2020, Marketing Ecosystems and Innovations. The nomination was submitted in three parts: nomination details, innovation statement and annexures. The final round involved quizzing by the jury of Dr. Moutusy Maity, Professor-Marketing, IIM-Lucknow and Dr. Tapan Sarker, Griffith University, Australia. The International conference, open for faculty in marketing domain was held from 9-11 January, 2020 at IBA, Bangalore.