Faridabad students win Microsoft’s ‘Olympics of Technology’ with automated anti-pollution and drug delivery mask
The win at the Microsoft Imagine Cup Asia Regional Semifinals takes the team from Faridabad’s Manav Rachna Institute of Research and Studies one step closer to the world championship finals in the US with a grand prize of $100,000.
Students from Faridabad-based Manav Rachna Institute of Research and Studies have made the country proud by winning the Microsoft Imagine Cup Asia Regional Semifinals held in Sydney on Tuesday. The three-member team developed an automated anti-pollution and drug delivery mask and with this win, they are one step closer to the grand prize of $100,000 at the world championship finals in the US.
The innovative product, which is the need of the hour as environment problems around us skyrocket, was developed by Aakash Bhadana, Vasu Kaushik, and Bharat Sundal at Manav Rachna Research Innovation and Incubation Centre (MRIIC) under the guidance Umesh Dutta and team.
About the device innovated by the Faridabad students
1. The smart anti-pollution mask developed by the team is named Caeli’, which means air’ in Latin.
2. The automated anti-pollution and drug delivery mask is especially designed for asthmatic and chronic respiratory patients.
3. The device has a few breakthrough features and aims to make life easier for respiratory patients living in polluted areas like in north India and especially in the Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR).
#Indian student team from #Faridabad-based #ManavRachna Institute won the #Microsoft Imagine Cup #Asia Regional Semifinals in Sydney and moved one step closer to win the grand prize of $100,000 at the world championship in the #US.
Photo: IANS pic.twitter.com/XtvShCi5EW IANS Tweets (@ians_india) February 12, 2019
How can the anti-pollution mask be used for bigger projects?
"At a time when air pollution is a big concern in various countries including India, we are collecting the real-time air pollution data that can be used by relevant stakeholders and the Indian government. They can integrate our application programme interfaces (APIs) into their projects and gain more insights," Aakash Bhadana from the 'Caeli’ team told IANS.
"Our aim is now to collaborate with right stakeholders and take the 'made in India' products (which also includes a pocket-sized nebulizer) to the market," said Bhadana.
More about the Microsoft Imagine Cup
1. Considered as the 'Olympics of Technology', Imagine Cup is a global annual competition sponsored and hosted by Microsoft.
2. More than 1.65 million students from over 190 countries have participated in the Microsoft Imagine Cup in the last 10 years.
3. There were three Indian teams among the 12 Asia finalists at the Microsoft Imagine Cup this year.
4. The other two teams were from Vellore Institute of Technology in Tamil Nadu, and RV College of Engineering in Bangalore.
5. The VIT team developed a device called 'Spot' which allows one to recognise packaged foods and check if it contains a certain ingredient or exhibits a certain character.
6. The team from RV College designed 'RVSAFE', a one-stop solution for effectively handling any kind of disaster -- natural or man-made.
Runners up in the Microsoft Imagine Cup Asia Semifinals
The first runner-up at the Asia semifinals was the Rail Nova China’ team that built a Rail Component Inspection Robot.
This inspection robot operates through automatic positioning and identifies various defects through multi-sensor fusion in order to understand when workers in a rail inspection project need to be replaced.
The second runner-up was 'USCAid’ from the Philippines who built the Aqua Check app.
This device uses Microsoft Azure's Custom Vision to allow anyone to analyse water contamination levels by taking a photo of a water sample through a microscope.
The first runners-up received $5,000 and the second runners-up $1,000.
The Manav Rachna team received $15,000 as winner and secured a spot in the world championship, to be able to win the grand prize of $100,000 at Microsoft's Redmond-based headquarters in May.
Read: IIT Madras students bag two of top three prizes in waste management innovation challenge