Call of innovation

Instruments of Change

An accident at Vaibhav Chhabra's former workplace proved to be the turning point in his life he could not have seen coming. He gathered people off social media to help rebuild the broken furniture at his Eyenetra office due to the collapsed ceiling, but even after the work was done people kept coming back to build new things, ultimately leading to the creation of Maker's Asylum, a collaborative space to share tools, knowledge and ideas.

Gradually people and tools accumulated and Chhabra quit his job to move the asylum to a garage in Bandra, deciding to work on it full time. Their idea of sharing space, tools and knowledge to facilitate innovation has been appreciated by many including TED which is a global set of conferences on brilliant innovative ideas. Engineering and design students from all fields have gravitated to this community space. The Asylum provides tools such as 3D printers and laser cutters along with raw material that are tough to procure at low cost. Actively participating members and contributors hold workshops every week for training on using the 3D printer, laser cutter, carpentry and making circuit boards. Maker's Asylum, which has opened up a space in Delhi too, requires one to sign up for a membership that covers costs of running the facility and new tools. They have more than 120 members at the workshop where engineers are working on race cars, furniture, their own 3D printer and LED light board that responds to music amongst many other projects.

By Karishma Goenka

Breath of Life

Teenager Arsh Shah Dilbagi's curiosity and acumen in scientific innovation was whetted when as a 12-year-old, his father gifted him a Lego Mindstorms kit, which includes software and hardware to create customisable, programmable robots, instead of the latest Playstation.

Four years later, Dilbagi had devised TALK, an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device, which converted the user's breath to synthesised speech. The Panipat-based Class 12 student, who has earlier built a prototype of an unmanned military vehicle, a home automation system that recognises voice commands and a robot pet dog, was inspired by his idol, physicist Stephen Hawking's disability, as well as his determination to help change the world to create his AAC device. "Hawking's AAC device takes about a minute to decode an average word. He has to twitch his cheeks to select letters on the virtual keyboard," says Dilbagi. Apart from the technical inconveniences of the device, it is cumbersome and expensive for a middle-class Indian family to afford.

In comparison, Dilbagi's TALK includes a smartphone-sized box that 'speaks' the words and an ear clip that 'reads' the user's exhalations. While existing devices use braincomputer or eye movements, Dilbagi figured out a way to use a person's breathing patterns. The user is required to give two distinguishable exhales by varying intensity/time, which it converts into electrical signals. The signals are then processed and labelled as 'dots'-for short exhales and 'dashes'-for longer exhales, which are interpreted as Morse Code and then synthesised as words, sentences or phrases.

Currently the device is in the testing phase. However, Dilbagi is determined to ensure that the device remains affordable. Dilbagi managed to bag the Voter's Choice Award at the Google Computer Science Awards in 2014 and received a $10,000 grant from Google.

By Moeena Halim

On the Right Track

Even before he could graduate with an engineering degree, Shashwat Pradhan, 22, already had two apps and his company Emberify in his kitty of achievement. This year, his app Instant, a quantified self and lifelogging app, also won an award from Google.

"I'm passionate about mobile technology especially based on user context. Since I spend way too much time on my smartphone and so do most people around me, Instant started off as a device usage tracker to keep this addiction in check," says Pradhan, who graduated in computer engineering from the College of Engineering, Pune, two months ago. For now, Instant tracks device usage, app usage, fitness activities, places visited and travel activities.

Taking into account user feedback, he expanded its functions to develop Instant into a lifelogging platform that keeps track of the user's day-to-day activities. The user's time is also quantified and presented on a dashboard. Pradhan began with `8 lakh and a team of two to work on context-aware apps. He will soon launch Instant for the web which will sync user's data from the smartphone and expand its functions to tracking other activities.

By Aditi Pai

The Green Warrior

It was a love for nurturing nature and encouraging reviews during a college project that prompted Priyanka Shah, 28, to set up iKheti as a business venture soon after her MBA programme at Mumbai's Welingkar Institute of Management Studies.

Primarily a gardening solutions company, iKheti is now focussing on vertical farming with an automatic irrigation system that's essential in a space-starved city like Mumbai. "It uses much less space than traditional farming and also yields more produce," she explains. While studying for her MBA in Business Design Programme at the Welingkar Institute, Shah presented a proposal on urban gardening during a project submission to venture capitalists. "One of the panelists suggested that I should participate in The Pitch, a business reality show," she says. Shah ranked among the top three and went on to formally launch her business in 2011.

With the aim of promoting sustainable farming, iKheti, through its website, offers consultancy on setting up urban home gardens and products that are not easily available in the market. Working on the motto of compost-grow-eat, she's brought in edible plants and seeds like purple cabbage, avocados and rosemary into vertical gardening. "We are constantly working on innovative solutions to combat space constraints," says Shah.

She recently customised planters around the theme of 'honey bee' for a baby shower party and is promoting the concept of green gifts or plants as gifting items. "We want our customers to reconnect with nature and literally go back to their roots," says Shah. She began with an investment of `75,000 which she had saved while working in an IT firm. The numbers are growing fast and iKheti sets up at least eight gardens every month for homes, restaurants and educational institutes.

By Aditi Pai

The Conservationists

The future of architecture lies in sustainability and the next generation has already started working towards it. A 72-member team of students from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, and Rachna Sansad Institute of Architecture, Mumbai, collectively built the prototype of a fully functional solar powered house called H Naught last year.

The project was their entry into the prestigious World Solar Decathlon competition, making them the first ever Indian team to be selected to participate amongst 30 other teams. The dedicated youngsters worked on the design of the house for almost a year to make sure it was as thermally insulated and energy efficient as possible. The house was equipped with a 5 KW solar array on the roof which would supply electricity besides other important appliances incorporated for comfort such as a solar oven, an efficient clothes dryer and a grey water purification system.

"The clothes dryer works on hot air from the air conditioner, while all our waste water is recycled for non-potable use in the house," says Parth Bhatia, a team member. The solar panels generate about 23 KW of electricity every 24 hours of which around 19 KW is consumed and the rest is passed on to the next day. The skeleton of the house is made of hollow steel pipes and the walls of gypsum and cyber cement panels to facilitate thermal insulation, keeping temperature inside the house unaffected by the weather outside. Incorporating a tastefully decorated living room, master bedroom, children's bedroom, dining area and a porch, the Rs 50 lakh house was re-built within 10 days for the competition in France.

The IIT campus in Mumbai currently houses the prototype on which the students are working to better the design and efficiency. They have also submitted proposals to the government to use it as a working model for city architecture on a larger scale. This is the perfect example of how students of varied strengths, divided responsibilities and successfully created something efficient.

By Karishma Goenka

Healthy Living

Kiran Kalakuntla's phone calls back home to his parents in Hyderabad from the US to check on their well-being eventually inspired him to give up a flourishing corporate career and start, a free app that helps people effectively store their medical records and monitor health-related information with convenience.

Kalakuntla, who holds a management degree from Duke University, US, was involved in a decade-long career with different telecom companies in the US, acquiring an experience of bringing complex technologies to the market, before he decided to move back to India. A one-of-its-kind platform, ekincare provides the user the ease of maintaining a database of their medical records by taking pictures of them and uploading. A colour coding system helps users identify levels of risk based on information analysed from their records and other factors like lifestyle and family history.

"It provides people with advice on beating health risks based on their particular condition, rather than generic information being bombarded on them," he says. An expert opinion feature enables the user to also share their records with any healthcare professional around the world. "It provides security of medical information and health monitoring is centralised at the user's end. It not only helps them detect potential risk but also empowers them to take charge of their health."

The app which was launched in November last year by Kalakuntla and co-founder Dinesh Koka, has other helpful features like blood SOS, which provides a database of donors with requests for blood donation addressed in a timely manner, by sending out an SMS to donors of the required blood group within a 10 km radius of the spot where the request was generated.

By Mona Ramavat

The Software Star

When Dr Manish Agarwal, an orthopaedic surgeon at PD Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai, challenged Vikas Karade to find a way to convert 2D X-rays to a 3D model, it gave the latter a topic for his PhD and led to his subsequent innovation.

By August 2012, he had created an algorithm 'XrayTo3D' which he hopes will one day help orthopaedic surgeons with pre-operative planning, post-operative procedures and intra-operative procedures. His collaboration with Amit Maurya, a BTech from IIT, Bombay, has helped him develop Tabplan3D software based on XrayTo3D. "This is a cloud-based software for planning of orthopaedic surgeries in a virtual 3D environment. It has been designed to work the same way our brain works," says Karade.

"If you show a 2D X-ray to an orthopaedic surgeon, he can imagine the related 3D bone shape. That is because their brain has learned the correlation between the two and they have prior information about the bone, " he says. Surgical trials, in the planning phase, will begin soon. Business and revenue models are ready and by early next year, Karade hopes to be able to make his patented innovation available in the market.

By Moeena Halim

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