India’s contingent at the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) 2026 in Romania has bagged one gold medal, three bronze medals and an honourable mention, continuing the country’s record of winning medals at the international competition for pre-university students, IIIT Hyderabad said in a statement. Shrilakshmi Venkatraman won the gold medal, while Aarav Anil Rao, Nishanth Shankar Lakshmanan and Advay Misra secured bronze medals. Soham Amit Pednekar received an honourable mention. The competition brings together school students from more than 40 countries and tests their ability to identify patterns in unfamiliar languages using logic and analytical reasoning. According to the Panini Linguistics Olympiad (PLO), at IIIT Hyderabad, the Indian contingent has so far won 37 medals: six Gold, nine Silver and 22 Bronze, along with nine ‘best solution’ awards, 19 honourable mentions and other team-level honours.

The Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at IIIT Hyderabad has selected five deep-tech start-ups from more than 110 applications for its six-month Avishkar Venture Studio Summer Cohort 2026. They will receive research support, mentoring, investor access and seed funding of up to Rs 10 lakh. The programme began on July 31 after 20 start-ups in deeptech, medtech, mobility and mediatech pitched before faculty, investors, entrepreneurs and industry experts. Entries were assessed on innovation, market potential, scalability, execution capability and founder strength. The ventures were Comply Ark Solution Private Limited, L2 Aero, Mimansa Play, SentraAuth Technologies and Stylique AI Private Limited, known as Yoko Styles. Their work covers DPDPA compliance, subsurface detection, speech development for children, behavioural biometric authentication and AI-based fashion design.

Amgen today announced the launch of the first Amgen Scholars Program in India at the International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT Hyderabad), bringing the globally respected undergraduate summer research program to India for the first time. Supported through a two-year commitment from Amgen through summer 2027, the program reflects the company’s long-standing commitment to advancing science education and inspiring future innovators. The inaugural cohort comprises 10 undergraduate scholars, including students from India, Vietnam, Qatar, and Dubai, creating opportunities for scientific collaboration and exchange across Asia. As part of the intensive two-month residential research experience, students will explore artificial intelligence and machine learning applications in fundamental sciences, drug design and discovery, healthcare, cheminformatics, genomics and related areas alongside faculty mentors at IIIT Hyderabad.