As India gallops onwards to greater connectivity, improved health outcomes, more income, more jobs, more growth and more prosperity overall, there still remain numerous problems that we are yet to effectively solve.
In a developing nation like ours, macro issues tend to get the most attention, as they should. However, a number of innovators are working on the smaller (albeit no less important!) problems, with solutions that define out of the box thinking.
Within this cohort of innovators, the strongest, and potentially the most powerful bunch, are the young professionals who have either just graduated, or are still in the process of doing so. These innovators have the advantage of unfettered, blue sky thinking, enabled by the recency of their education. What they lack however, is opportunity and resources.
Plugging this gap, is the Solve for Tomorrow competition by Samsung India. In only its second season, the competition has already garnered over 70,000 entries from teams of innovators from all over India. We’re now down to the Top 10 teams. These teams have been through several rounds of elimination, training and mentoring from the teams at Samsung, FITT, IIT-Delhi and government experts. They’ve also had access to Samsung’s experts from their visits to Samsung’s R&D facilities and they’ve attended a rigorous bootcamp to polish up their solutions and prototypes.
For those of us who haven’t followed the incredible journey these teams have been on, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow’s video series is capturing the essence of their incredible innovations, in the run up to the finale where the Top 3 teams who will win the Rs 1.5 Crore prize will be announced.
In Episode Three, we meet Team Milaan and Team Demeter, who are handling two very relevant problems, in their own unique way.
For Team Milaan, the problem of missing children came to the fore when one of the team members heard firsthand, about a missing child from his neighbourhood. As they researched the problem, they were able to identify several failure points, and the reasons behind the (sometimes) years-long lag between complaints of missing children, and their reunion with their parents. Their solution takes an AI enabled approach to facial recognition, to aid the efforts of police, NGOs and social workers, in helping recognise missing children.
The solution is one that will, ideally, allow people who work with children in any context to recognise a child from the missing children registry, by simply scanning the child using the Milaan app. If the child is flagged as a missing person, the user will be notified immediately, thereby closing the gap by providing relevant details that will allow the police to unite the families quickly, while also (hopefully) holding perpetrators to account.
The very aptly named Team Demeter’s inspiration came from team member Prithvi Ullas’ own family farm. Being aware of the many problems that plague farmers in India, the team set out to create a small, cost effective solution that helps small farmers battle pests in a way that is kind to their pockets, and kind to the environment.
Their solution took the form of a heavy duty drone that can carry a pesticide spray. It can identify plants that are infested, and take action by spraying only the affected plant. In this way, the farmers are able to minimise pesticide use while maximising crop yield, and also taking much better care of their soil, and its denizens. In its current prototype, the drone can already fly for 20 minutes, and has a tank capacity of 5 litres. The team is confident of improving both the specs, and lowering the cost, with further development.
Vipul Singla, who hails from Samsung’s Visual Display E-commerce Sales team at Samsung, is the mentor for Team Milaan. He deeply resonates with the cause that Team Milaan has chosen to work towards, and is impressed with the headway the team has made. He sees the innovation as a step towards creating a larger ecosystem that enables the police. “In my opinion the entire ecosystem needs to come together like the police, the NGOs, the government bodies. Also the training of these officials, the police, the NGOs on how to use this app properly and effectively will be a major deciding factor and the team in my opinion.”
Project Demeter’s mentor Sanchit Kaushal comes from Samsung’s Cloud Computing Architecture team. He is very confident in the team’s solution, and it’s ability to achieve the lofty goal the team has set for itself. “I always believe that ideas can be coarse, but the implementation should always be thought out.” As the team is still prototyping, he also had a last minute tip for them to use infrared, which will help them make the solution more weather agnostic.
It’s the final stretch, and all of the Top 10 teams are feeling the heat as the finale approaches. While the prize money is a substantial draw, so is the validation that comes from winning a competition of this stature, and all the teams are raring to go, for the final showdown.
Watch the full episode here, and catch up on the teams’ progress at Solve for Tomorrow, as they make the final big push to the finish line.
This is a partnered post.
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