Amazing High Speed Photography:

 

Natural Remedies for Diabetes:

Diabetes is among the most debilitating of lifestyle diseases, often the precursor to many other types of health disorders such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases and chronic illnesses of the eye. Most diabetics tend to depend upon taking medications, many of which include hormone supplementation injections and drugs for controlling the sugar levels. Though these aids are often critical for managing cases where diabetes seems to have turned into an incurable condition, it is always better to seek natural cures. These natural remedies don’t put forth the kind of side-effects associated with stronger medications and can be resourced from our everyday supplies.

Using Methi Seeds:

Fenugreek or Methi seeds are considered the most effective of natural cures that can help alleviate typical symptoms of diabetes. Methi seeds should be soaked in water overnight. The water concentrated with the seeds’ juices should be consumed early in the morning on an empty stomach. For making this natural concoction stronger, you can crush the seeds and sieve them through a cloth or filter paper.

Using Natural Juices:

Some juices have been found to be effective in controlling high sugar levels that can prove fatal for diabetics. These are juices of fruits and vegetables that are further enriched with antioxidants and many rare micronutrients. The most recommended variety here is the Bitter Gourd or Karela juice. Other options include grape juice or the juice-like extract made from boiling mango leaves in water.

Aloe Gel Remedy:

An effective, natural concoction for diabetes can be prepared by adding a few teaspoons of ground Bay Leaf (Tejpatra) with one teaspoon of turmeric. This mixture should be mixed with an equal amount of aloe vera gel and consumed daily, before

lunch and dinner.

Using Chapattis to Your Advantage:

Another useful way of managing diabetes is increasing the daily intake of fiber in the natural form. This includes increasing the fiber content in chappatis that tend to be eaten with regularity in Indian homes. The refined flour should be mixed with a combination of flours procured from different cereals, particularly those high in soluble fiber. This includes flours of barley and lentils like Chana Dal and soya bean.

Using Jarul or Banaba:

Diabetics can use Banaba or Jarul plant extract. Banaba is among the lesser known of herbal plants in India. Along with India, it is grown in only a handful of other nations. The herbal powder of Banaba extract can be used to make herbal tea. This plant contains high concentrations of contains Corosolic acid—the most potent of biochemical compounds that stimulate faster glucose metabolism and help to regulate blood sugar and insulin levels that is very useful for combating diabetes.

Easy Natural Remedies for Diabetes:

Jamun is one of the rarest plants where nearly each part, the leaves, berry and seeds are known to help in controlling blood sugar levels. Neem leaves are useful in a similar manner. Amla or the Indian goose Berry is similarly effective in managing sugar levels. Instead of using only Neem leaves, you can also add leaves of Tulsi and Bel Patra. All these leaves can be boiled together for increasing the potency of the filtered extract.

Inspirational Quotes - vnrcud:

Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit. -Edward Abbey

Just know, when you truly want success, you’ll never give up on it. No matter how bad the situation may get. - Unknown

Accept responsibility for your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else.– Les Brown

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. - Joshua J. Marine

Its hard to wait around for something you know might never happen; but its harder to give up when you know its everything you want. – Unknown

One of the most important keys to Success is having the discipline to do what you know you should do, even when you dont feel like doing it. - Unknown

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, or worn. It is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace & gratitude. - Denis Waitley

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. – Bill Cosby

The best revenge is massive success. – Frank Sinatra

Forget all the reasons it won’t work and believe the one reason that it will. - Unknown

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. – Steve Jobs

Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try. – Jack Canfield

Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs. – Farrah Gray

Try not to become a man of success but a man of value. - Albert Einstein

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them. - Henry David Thoreau

Inspiration and genius--one and the same. - Victor Hugo 

Doubt whom you will, but never yourself. - Christian Nestell Bovee

Every artist was first an amateur. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

In any project the important factor is your belief. Without belief, there can be no successful outcome. - William James

I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward. - Charlotte Brontë

We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough. - Helen Keller

I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she will make the same effort, and have the same hope and faith. - Mahatma Gandhi

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action. - Benjamin Disraeli

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. - Orison Swett Marden

No great man ever complains of want of opportunities. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. –Pablo Picasso

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. –Christopher Columbus

Foods that can reduce body weight:-

Losing weight is not just about reducing food intake and cutting things out of your diet. There are a few food stuffs you can add to your diet which can help with and potentially speed up weight loss.

1: Grapefruit

We've all heard of the grapefruit diet but you don't have to live on a diet of grapefruit alone to lose weight. It's been found that that eating half a grapefruit before each meal or drinking a serving of the juice three times a day can help you drop the pounds. The magic ingredient is the fruit's phytochemicals and their effect of reducing insulin levels which stimulates your body to convert calories into energy rather than storing as flabby fat.

2: Cinnamon

Cinnamon is a super spice when it comes to boosting your well being as it has many health-giving properties. In terms of weight loss, it's all to do with controlling those post-meal insulin spikes, which is what make you feel hungry. And you don't need to get much of the stuff to get the benefits; studies have shown that just a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon a day can lower the blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels. To up your cinnamon intake either sprinkle it on to your breakfast cereal, or maybe mix it into your morning latte.

3: Chili peppers

Adding a bit of heat to your diet can give you a weight-loss boost. Studies show that having a spicy start to your morning, i.e. eating chilies as a part of your breakfast can make you opt for a smaller lunch. Apparently it's down to capsaicin which is found in chilies and red peppers that has appetite suppressing properties. Granted — chilies aren't the easiest of items to face as your morning meal but how about as a part of a spicy egg-white omelette or stirred into scrambled eggs for a spicy weight loss kick.

4: Fennel tea

Again fennel tea is a food stuff that boasts a list of health giving benefits; it's packed with good levels of potassium, magnesium and calcium as well as the vitamins B and C. But when it comes to the weight-loss stakes fennel had a double benefit: working both as an appetite suppressant and a metabolism booster which really are both useful if you're trying to lose weight. Fennel tea is widely available in supermarkets so add it to your daily diet to stave off cravings and boost your fuel burn.
less.

5: Salad

Eating a low-calorie salad before your main meals can help you to lose weight and ensure you get recommended daily intake of veggies. And it's not rocket science as to how it works for weight loss, the key is the sheer volume of a salad, which makes you feel too full to pig out when it comes to your main meal. You need to make sure you don't drown it in a fatty dressing though — a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar makes the perfect healthy accompaniment to a fresh salad.

6: Green tea
Another powerful brew — green tea really has a multitude of health and wellbeing benefits. And if you are into fitness it makes the perfect pre-workout drink; it's been found to increase endurance by as much as 24 per cent, allowing you to exercise longer and burn more calories. But in terms boosting your weight loss power, a study carried out by the Journal of Nutrition, drinking five cups of green tea per day can help you lose twice as much weight, most of it where we want to lose it most — around the middle.

7: Celery

Celery rates well as a weight-loss food as you can actually end up burning more calories eating it than your body will take on consuming it. But by no means does that make celery low in nutritional value; it's super-packed with fiber (great for digestion) and foliate (the essential nutrient for the care and production of new cells within the body). Get your celery fix by making sure it's featured in your pre-meal salad, as an accompaniment to your lunch or as a healthy snack when you want to satisfy that 'munch' craving.

8: Lentils

Lentils are great weight-loss food as they have the power to really satisfy your hunger without packing your body with loads of calories and fat — that's often why lentils feature heavily as a meat substitute — they can make you feel like you've had a meaty dish minus the calories and saturated fat that come with eating meat. Again like celery, lentils are full of fiber and foliate so as well as giving you the full feeling, they are great for digestion and healthy cell growth.

9: Dark chocolate
Granted chocolate is not low in calories nor in fat, but dark chocolate has two major dietary positives that can lead to long term weight loss. First, it's quite difficult to munch massive quantities of high-quality dark chocolate as compared to the milk stuff. Secondly, dark chocolate is very high in health-promoting antioxidants. In terms of a weapon in your weight-loss armory, you can use dark chocolate as a way to curb any sweet cravings, just a few small squares to quell a full on chocolate binge is well worth the modest calorie intake.

10: Quinoa

Pronounced 'Keen-wah', quinoa is known as the 'mother grain' by the ancient Peruvians. Quinoa is good for weight loss as it has the power to keep you feeling fuller for longer due to its high protein content. Also the carbs that are present in the grain are released slowly into the body so you won't get that rush of energy after eating quinoa as you would with other foods like white rice or pasta. You can eat quinoa raw but we reckon it's best when it's cooked in a similar way to rice or couscous.

courtesy: yahoo.com

Mangalyaan 'tweets' first image from Mars:

Barely 12 hours after India's Mars Orbiter mission, Mangalyaan, entered the red planet's orbit, the spacecraft sent the first image from the neighbouring planet.

According to a CNN IBN report, the Mangalyaan sent five photographs of Mars, tweeted from ISRO's Mars Orbiter Twitter account (@MarsOrbiter).  The caption of the image read, "The view is nice up here."

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) confirmed receiving initial data from the MOM.

India's mission to Mars entered the orbit on Wednesday, making it the first Asian nation to reach the Red Planet, and the first country to achieve the feat in its maiden attempt.

The cost of the mission was less than the budget of the Hollywood space blockbuster "Gravity".

The Mars Orbiter Mission, or MOM, cost $74 million (45.29 million pounds), a fraction of the $671 million the U.S. space agency NASA spent on its newly arrived MAVEN Mars mission.

With this success, India joined the United States, Russia and Europe in successfully sending probes to orbit or land on Mars.

In 2011 a Chinese spacecraft destined for Mars failed to leave Earth's orbit after a botched Russian launch.

ISRO successfully ignited the main engine and eight small thrusters, which fired for 24 minutes, trimming the speed of the craft so it could be captured by Mars's gravity and slide into orbit. 

SIGNS OF LIFE

Nervous flight controllers received confirmation of the successful manoeuvre around 8 a.m. India time when the spacecraft, nicknamed MOM, emerged from behind the planet and transmitted a signal.

After completing the 666 million km (414 million mile) journey in more than 10 months, the spacecraft, also known as Mangalyaan -- Hindi for "Mars craft" -- will now study the Red Planet's surface and scan its atmosphere for chemical methane.

ISRO scientists will operate five scientific instruments on the spacecraft to gather data, said ISRO's scientific secretary, V. Koteswara Rao.

The expected life of the craft is six months, after which it will run out of fuel and be unable to maintain its orbit.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said he wants to expand India's five-decade-old space programme. The technological triumph is fortuitously timed for him - he will be able to flaunt it on a trip to the United States starting on Friday.

Modi is also India's minister of space, and noted with satisfaction that the project had cost less than "Gravity", whose budget the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) estimates at $100 million.

Mangalyaan and NASA's MAVEN join two other NASA orbiters, Europe's Mars Express orbiter and two NASA rovers currently exploring Mars.

MAVEN, which arrived on Sunday, is an acronym for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution. It is designed to study the planet's thin atmosphere in attempt to learn what happened to Mars's water. (With inputs from agencies)

Courtesy: yahoo.com

India Proud On These Young Peoples_Part 3

NRI creates headsets that will help you meditate:

Rohan Dixit's innovation may not seem like much at first glance but his brainwave headset that helps you meditate aided by technology might be twenty first century's most revolutionary innovation in preventive healthcare.

Child prodigy to Innovation Jockey:

“My innovation – the app Sales Desk is developed with a mission to lead in the retail industry.”

Coming from anyone else this would sound like an idle boast, but Yuvraj Singh is no ordinary 18 year old. The Jalandhar boy was computer literate before he had even learned how to read, a fact that led him to be nominated for the Guinness and Limca books of world record, and made him the local media darling at the tender age of four. He would also go on to launch his first website www.yuraj.name at 12 years old and followed that up by starting his own company Devil’s Infotech in 2010. He names his parents, both software engineers, as his inspiration.

Sales Desk, a mobile app to help retailers keep track of their sales records is the result of his interaction with his father’s clients, mostly retailers who he says were constantly exasperated by current methods of tracking sales. The innovation helped him get shortlisted from among four and a half thousand hopefuls for Innovation Jockeys season 2. “Sales Desk filters data in four categories that are daily sale, weekly sale, monthly sale and yearly sale. The user can view the total sale and generate tax and email reports very easily using my application,” Yuvraj explains. The app aggregates sales data in a way that also allows the retailer to monitor sales data at multiple venues.

Yuvraj is currently pursuing his Integrated B.Tech – M. Tech Diploma in Computer Science Engineering from Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar. When asked about his hobbies and passions the 18 year old innovator says there is little outside the world of computers that interests him. His current obsession with mobile platforms ensures that he spends most of his time ‘exploring different parts of upcoming apps and technologies’ to inspire and improve his own creations. He is currently working on an Instant Messaging Application which he promises will be worlds apart from existing apps. 

So what inspires him to keep innovating?

“I am constantly inspired by Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. They achieved so much at a young age. I may not have the platform and access to resources they did but that will never stop me,” is the quick reply.

Next on agenda for the wildly ambitious teen whiz is expanding his company to start an R&D centre with a focus on mobile platforms. He hopes one day to branch out internationally. Innovation in itself, Yuvraj says, is not that difficult but to keep innovating is a challenge. And one needs to constantly innovate to stay in the game.

Boy wonder creates a system that makes car keys redundant:

 

Imagine using your smartphone to access and control your vehicle. If 22 year old Arvind Sanjeev had his way that is exactly what we would all be doing. His Remote Vehicle Activation System using the Android operating system allows you to switch on the air conditioning, turn off the headlights, open the boot of the car and even have the engine running, all without leaving your bedroom. He intends to make the smartphone smarter and do away with bulky car keys in the process.

“This application gives the user all the features that he would like to access without even entering the car. The phone along with the custom hardware module installed within the car enables the driver to access features like air conditioning, engine Start, parking lights, central locking, power windows, music players, boot access, etc all from within a distance of about a 100m (ideal) from the car,” explains Arvind.

However, convenience, Arvind says, is secondary. The primary objective of his remote vehicle activation system is to offer a more enhanced security to vehicles. The number of vehicles on the Indian roads is on a rise and so are car thefts. The current remote locking system is inadequate and in desperate need of an upgrade. Well Arvind is here to provide one.

According to Arvind, “These systems apart from being overpriced, provide only one basic feature that is central locking and that works only within a distance of 10-20 m. The system operates at 300-600 MHZ frequencies and can easily be hacked or may get triggered accidentally as it is at lower frequencies. The conventional system also has only one function which is to lock and unlock doors and has a limited range of control of about 10-15m.” He further adds, “The system is also costly and maintenance is required.” In contrast his product “does not demand any additional service charges or maintenance. It is a onetime fit and forget system.”

The response to the Remote Vehicle Activation System has been huge. Given an opportunity to present it at the Blackberry 10 launch in Mumbai early this year, Arvind has been floored by the positive reception his system has generated. Although still in the prototyping stage he soon hopes to be able to tie up with an industrial original equipment manufacturer to commercialize his invention.

However, the remote vehicle activation system numbers only one amongst a dazzling inventory of innovations. The born and raised Cochin boy who is currently pursuing his engineering bachelors in Electronics and Telecommunications from the TocH Institute of Science and Technology is a prolific innovator to put it mildly. Fanatical about robotics and electronic system design, Arvind already possesses an exhaustive stockpile of inventions and creations, all of which are testimony to his budding genius. Some of his projects integrate mobility and robotics and include an Android operated miniature robot car, an Android controlled Honda dio scooter and an autonomous line following robot. His work with GPS technology has yielded a portable GPS navigation module, a glove controlled Hovercraft, a digital speedometer for scooters based on GPS and a keypad protection and anti-theft system for vehicles. He also continues to experiment in related fields creating an Auto-stabilization system for quad-rotor helicopter, an interactive voice response systems and finally an Electric ignition based rocket using his own solid fuel mixture. An innovator truly worthy of the name.

So what drives the 22 year old to invent so furiously?
Arvind's answer is simple - passion. 

Arvind is also Innovation Jockeys' biggest success story. He is a part of the jury for Innovation Jockeys Season 3. 

From failing in engineering to co-founding a million-dollar company:

In a world where everyone around us want us to "think" and follow the conventional route to success, Varun Agarwal shares a very different mantra of success -- "Don't think." Varun shares his fascinating story of starting India's largest college merchandise company and becoming a bestselling author, while braving a certain 'Anu Aunty'.

A low-cost speed controller:

 

India has the world’s worst record in road safety. More people die in road accidents in India than anywhere else in the world. Recognising the desperate need for a solution, R Keerthivasan an engineering student from Coimbatore, set to work on a device that would prevent drivers, specially those of public vehicles from driving rash. The result is his version of a low-cost speed controller, which when fitted into any automobile would prevent the vehicle from going beyond a certain speed limit.“Basically, when the user rotates/presses the throttle in an automobile, the force is used to open a valve proportional to the throttle movement. More the throttle is pressed, more the valve opens, and more power is given to the engine.” Keerthi explains, “In the proposed design, when the speed of the automobile exceeds a desired limit, then the force applied by the driver to the throttle is isolated. So even if he gives force to press the throttle of the automobile, this will not be passed on to the valve.”

Force isolation, he says is the USP of this design. That and the fact that its 40 per cent cheaper than any existing speed control systems. While various state governments have tried to make speed controllers mandatory in public transport vehicles, the prohibitive cost of installing these speed control systems has made implementation tough. It takes as much as 15 to 20,000 rupees for each installation and modifications have to be made to the fuel supply system. This makes it uneconomical specially for small time contract vehicle owners.

This is where Keerthivasan's speed controller comes in. “Other products manipulate the fuel supply system, while I do it by manipulating the throttle wire movement,” points out Keerthivasan. “Also, other products are dependent on the type of fuel used, while my design is fuel - independent. It can be fitted to any vehicle that has a throttle.”

Keerthi, as he’s fondly called, has already created a prototype and fitted it in his bike. He now wants to turn his model into a product but the challenges are tremendous for this budding entrepreneur. The first hurdle is getting your idea patented. Having applied for a patent in 2011 he might have to wait for as long as five years for it to come through.

However, this has not deterred the 22-year-old innovator from continuing with his quest of making technology affordable. He is currently working on a charger for electronic devices that cuts off power after a specified time. There is already a similar product in the market that costs 2200 rupees but his will be a cheaper design.

Still in his final year at college in PSG Institute of Technology, Coimbatore, Keerthi already has big plans for the future. He dreams of running his own innovative solutions enterprise. The Steve Jobs fan says, anticipating the wants and needs of a consumer before he/she recognizes it, sets successful innovators and entrepreneurs apart from the rest of the crowd. A quality that makes him stand out from the rest of his contemporaries. 

India Proud On These Young Peoples_Part 2

The boy who created a washable notebook:

When 21 year old engineering student Indrajeet Ghorpade saw waste paper bins at his college hostel overflowing with used notebooks at the end of every semester, he was horrified. If this was the waste generated by a single institution, he could only imagine the scenario at schools, colleges and universities across the country at the end of every academic cycle. Thousands of tonnes of paper wasted each year just on rough-work and calculations. Considering that India recycles only 26% of its paper,this amounted to shocking misuse of a non-renewable resource. Something needed to be done and fast.

The first step for Indrajeet, was admitting that despite technology providing us with paperless alternatives like laptops, tablets etc, the conventional paper notebook at least in the Indian context was here to stay. Although, access to technology is rapidly increasing, it remains out of reach for the poor student. Besides, writing and learning is still the most popular method of studying in India across the economic spectrum.
The question that kept doing the rounds in his mind was how did one come up with an environment-friendly alternative that was affordable and yet did not disrupt the preferred method of studying? At last it dawned upon him. A reusable notebook that uses washable synthetic sheets instead of paper. So simple.
"These sheets can be washed, dried,re-bound and used again,” says an enthusiastic Indrajeet. “Thus you end up saving electricity and trees that go into the manufacturing of the conventional paper notebooks as well as the money that goes into buying new books”.

"Since stationery can be very expensive," he says. "This is an attractive alternative for the students. One does not fill all the pages of a book in a day, so you don't have to wash it everyday. Most likely you'll only need to do it once a month and its as simple as doing your laundry.” When showcased at the Innovation Jockeys contest last year, the reusable notebook became an instant hit. Buoyed by the positive response generated by his product, its proud creator says it’s only a matter of time before the reusable notebook hits the market.

“I have presented my idea to few of the leading stationery manufactures and organizations that support eco-friendly innovations and have received a positive response. With efforts channeled in the right direction along with smart marketing strategies, we should be able to see the product being used in every household, school and college in near future.”

In his final year in engineering at the Vellore Institute of Technology, Indrajeet has already landed a cushy job with a prestigious internet company. However, he dreams of striking it big on his own someday. First on his agenda is creating an “educational Institution where teaching will happen in an unconventional way with a complete emphasis on gaining practical skills, encouraging creativity and innovation.” Other dream projects include, turning his house and eventually the entire neighbourhood into an eco-friendly zone. A beach-side café also happens to be on the list.

However, the die-hard fan of Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee insists that innovators today have a more difficult challenge ahead of them. Environmental sustainability must be a part of every solution. For him,a true trailblazer is one who can think diversely and “come up with a technique that is efficient, cost effective and supports sustainable development.” Much like the reusable notebook.

They made shopping easy:

Don’t you hate it when half your time is spent trying to locate products in the super market rather than purchasing them? 

Two students from Nagpur may have the solution.

Sudhanshu Shekhar and Tanmay Agrawal, both students at Shri Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and Management, Nagpur have developed a mobile application for smart phones that automatically syncs your shopping list with the network of the mall. The program on the network server then locates each product from your list, in the mall and finds the shortest path to avail these products. This app even alerts you when a product that was previously out of stock is available or not.

“The project consists of two phases. Phase I is creating the shopping list on the handheld device (designed for Android and Windows based smartphones) through a unique user ID and password,” explains 25- year old Sudhanshu who’s currently pursuing his Masters in Computer Applications. “Phase II will have a pop-up on the screen as soon as the user logs on to the application. The pop- up will contain current offers at different stores. The manager can also manage the inventory simply by seeing the database stock list and getting a pop-up on the screen when the quantity of a product is below a certain a level.”

According to 21- year old Tanmay, who’s currently in his final year of studying Electronics Engineering at SRCOEM, the main purpose behind the innovation was  to develop retail businesses at superstores and malls in such a way that it both provided ‘a rich shopping experience’ to the consumers and generated superb profits for the retailers. The innovation called Smart Shop was among the shortlisted ten innovations for the Innovation Jockeys 2013 Awards.

When you talk to the two, you quickly realize that while they maybe a team, their approaches to innovation couldn’t be more different. Where Sudhanshu, the older of the two and obviously the dreamer, talks of revolutionizing the retail industry, Tanmay prefers to focus on convenience and practicality. Smart Shop is the result of this perfect marriage between ambition and a workman-like attitude.

According to Sudhanshu, “To be an innovator you must have an ability to think and to mould your dreams into reality.” Meanwhile, Tanmay who regards Pranav Mistry as the greatest innovator of our times, uses his example to tell us what he thinks ought to be the prime objective of any innovator. ‘His (Mistry’s) innovations make things simple and that is what matters.”



A helmet that saves lives:

 

Over 32,000 people died in motorcycle accidents last year in India. When three students from Manav Rachna College of Engineering in Faridabad looked deeper into the statistics, they were shocked to learn that difference between life and death in most cases was the time it took for medical help to arrive. Mayank Dawar, Chaitanya Chhabra and Mohit Bahl sat together and pondered over how an SOS for a motorist who lay critically injured possibly unconscious could be sent out as soon as possible. In general an ambulance is supposed to reach the site within 10 minutes, but the Indian average is about 18 minutes. A further delay struck as unconscionable to the three engineers.

What would emerge from this intensive brainstorming is an innovation called Smart Skull. “We were shocked to find out that the most of the patients were unable to get immediate health care after an accident because of which the fatality rate has been increasing,” explains Mayank. “The idea is to deploy a wireless device in the helmet of the rider that measures the impact on the head. The device is paired with the rider’s Smartphone (loaded with a cloud integrated application) that analyses the data from the device and informs the relatives, nearest hospital and emergency centers about the intensity and location of the trauma.” 

Smart Skull has a mobile application (for Android and Windows) that is connected to a sensor within the helmet via bluetooth that makes the call to ICE (In Case of Emergency) numbers immediately from the driver’s phone after the motorist meets with an accident. Smart Skull beat out over 4000 entries to be among the 10 shortlisted innovations for the Innovation Jockeys finals this year.

The three 20-somethings from Delhi credit Technoplanet labs, a student initiated lab at their institution for providing a sound technical platform where they can convert their ideas into working innovations. Hesitant about revealing anything about projects they are currently working on, before filing for a patent, the three nonetheless hint at something big in the pipeline. 

So what does it take to keep coming up with new ideas and innovations? 
“A fresh mind, and peace”, is the heartening answer we’re given.

Indian student creates futuristic shopping trolley:

 

Tired of long queues at cash counters? Thanks to an engineering student from Bangalore, that may soon be history. “When I recently went to a supermarket to buy groceries, I had to stand in a long queue for billing, which resulted in an unpleasant shopping experience. Searching the products across the floor and remembering my shopping list was also a problem. I also realised that there was a tremendous possibility for In-store marketing and advertisements. KART was born as a solution to these,” explains KART creator Bhargav Sridhar.

KART, according to Bhargav is an intelligent shopping trolley designed to provide a seamless shopping experience by implementing an RFID reader, an Interactive Display System and a weighing console. The Display System provides an effective user interface that syncs shopping lists from the user’s phone, displays product information, offers and best-buys and even shows bill information. Product codes are scanned by the RFID reader and syncs them to the display system while the weighing console takes information for perishable products (fruits and vegetables).

Impressive? The jury at Innovation Jockeys 2013 thought so as well. KART won the Retail Category at the Innovation Jockeys Awards Night on 30th August, 2013. 21 year old Bhargav comes from a family of engineers and is currently in his final year at Visveswaraya Technological University, Bangalore studying Computer Science Engineering. 

“My father being a Mechanical Engineer and my mother a Telecommunications Engineer, I was inspired with machines and technology right from my childhood,” says Bhargav. “Innovation for me is like an adrenaline rush. The value it creates, the lives it affects are a source of immense satisfaction.” 

Apart from KART, he is working on ‘developing a search engine that produces Info-graphic and flow-diagrammed results for user queries.’

Photography is another passion of Bhargav’s. He shoots officially for Apex Racing, Bangalore and is also an accomplished table tennis player having represented his school at national level competitions. 
So what keeps him motivated? 

“I focus on developing solutions that ease or solve existing problems and when I succeed, the user satisfaction makes me happier and that is what I work for,” is the answer.

India Proud On These Young Peoples_Part 1

Arunachalam Muruganantham: The sanitary napkin man:

Arunachalam Muruganantham, a workshop helper - from being rejected by the same women whose lives he wanted to change, designed, created, tested and implemented a sanitary napkin-making machine that operates on a small scale, now gearing up to create jobs for a million women.

The boy who created the thinking wheelchair:

Chivalrous Humanitarian Ideological Loiter Device. The term may not mean much at first glance but the innovation it stands for, has the power to empower millions of disabled people around the world.

CHILD is a multiple-utility based system that helps people unable to walk, to move around independently. It consists of a motion control based on Gesture, Strain, IFR Remote and Dual-tone Multi-frequency signalling. A Haptic Arm and Tray has been attached to help the visually impaired avoid obstacles while navigating. The system is also RFID and password enabled to ensure user security. 

The innovation is the result of one boy’s experience of watching his father struggle to live a life of dignity while consigned to the wheelchair. When Udhay Shankar saw his father, a cancer patient, grappling everyday with this inability to be independent he knew he had to do something about it. The experience shaped his entire approach to innovation. 

“The dependency on wheel chairs in India is on the rise,” says the 20-year-old from Coimbatore. “The motto was to help physically challenged people to be as independent as possible. Secondly, to ease human effort and add a comfort factor to their daily lives.” 

Udhay is currently pursuing his Bachelors in Instrumentation and Control Systems Engineering at the PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore and CHILD, which won the Grand Jury Award at Innovation Jockeys this year is merely the beginning of his efforts at empowering those he can.

“Currently my friends and I are trying to set up an NGO called TRY (The Revolutionary Youth), which is aimed at teaching the orphans and underprivileged children Robotics, MS Office, writing mails and using the search engines,” he explains. 

Apart from empathy, the quality that defines Udhay is ambition. Armed with sound technical skills he doesn’t shy away from taking on big projects. Works in the pipeline include an innovation called AGRO which is aimed at reducing the transportation losses incurred in the transportation of fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile, DESTRO is meant to cater to ‘defence and security applications at houses, industries, etc. “It has the ability to attack, detect obstacles within 10m range (Using LASER) and navigate by itself with override options. It can pick objects and carry them and finally attach the target.” Udhay explains. Another one is SENSE which is about ‘home and industry automation.’ The aim is ‘monitoring water, electricity and gas consumption online and so online payment is made easy.’

So where does this appetite for innovation come from? 

“The most important thing is to understand the pain of others and take it up as your own. Believe that every problem has a solution,” says the young engineer. “Spend some time thinking of the possible ways to solve it. Analyze the merits and demerits. The scope of any innovation revolves around cost, performance and utility. The solution’s simplicity is its essence.”

Students fought against milk adulteration:

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) made a shocking revelation in 2011. In a first-of-its kind survey on milk adulteration the authority found that 70 percent of the milk in India is contaminated. Most Indians are consuming detergent and other contaminants along with milk without even realising it and consumers are largely helpless. How do you tell whether the milk you’re drinking is fit for consumption or not? For all you know you could be drinking poison in the name of nutrition.

This horrified two students at IIT Bhubaneshwar enough to do something about it. Pravir Singh Gupta and Partha Ghosh decided that it was time one stopped relying on government authorities and found a way to empower consumers instead. This led them to create Drink Pure - a device that would allow consumers to detect impurities in milk for themselves.

"Frequent reports of adulteration of milk with harmful chemicals, associated health hazards and lack of government surveillance for such incidents - inspired us to come up with the idea of Drink Pure – a simple take-at-home test to check milk for adulteration," says Pravir.

How Drink Pure works

Most home based methods to test adulteration check only for water and are more often than not, time consuming. The tests to detect chemical based adulteration use chemicals themselves and can only test for a limited number of contaminants at a time. Each chemical requires a different test and busy householders decide to forgo these entirely to save on time. This is where Drink Pure comes in.

"Drink Pure is a handheld device that uses semiconductor based sensors to detect adulteration in milk," explains Partha. "It does not require any chemical reagents to detect adulteration."

Pravir chimes in with the philosophy that has led the two of them to develop Drink Pure in the first place. "I strongly feel innovators need to focus on empowering consumers," he says. "This is because in developing countries consumers are more likely to be cheated as producers take advantage of lax government agencies that fail to prevent it."

However, the project has run into a familiar roadblock known to all budding inventors - shortage of funding.

"The design of the product is ready," says Pravir. "However, currently we are trying to procure equipment to manufacture sensors. Some equipment we have managed to get but the rest is pending. Shortage of funding is the major challenge we are facing. We need an industry collaboration to help us manufacture a prototype."

In their final year of B-tech at IIT Bhubaneshwar, the two hope to see their project come to fruition in the next couple of years. While, Pravir dreams of making it big as an entrepreneur, Partha wants to become a scientist and this – their respective areas of expertise and interests – they say is what makes them such a great innovating team.

The two 22-year-olds are currently working on a 'surveillance system for smart cities’ and have filed for a few patents together. When asked will the partnership survive graduation, both insist in unison "Of course!"

Helping the visually impaired get digital:

 

Who knew a trip to a blind school would have the potential of completely changing the future of blind technology. When 23 year old Rakshith visited an institution for the blind in his city of Bangalore,he was shocked at how difficult learning was for the visually impaired, specially the beginners for whom each lesson was torturous.

“They had to punch holes in order to write in Braille with the help of a sharp object. They told me it was sometimes painful to keep punching holes at a fast rate,” he says. “It was then that a few of my friends and I decided to develop a Braille pad to open up the digital world to them.”

The team devised a way to convert text in digital books to Braille with the help of what they now call a Universal Digital Braille Book. Until now, learning for the visually impaired has been limited to whatever books are available in Braille.They are largely unable to access the vast amounts of data on the internet that rest of us take for granted. The Digital Braille Book makes this tremendous reserve of digital knowledge as easily available to them as to anybody else. For the blind students that Rakshith shared his idea with, his concept was the equivalent of an ‘open sesame’ into a world where they could learn on an equal footing with their sighted counterparts.

How the Digital Braille Pad works“Universal Digital Braille Book is designed using the principles of embedded systems. It converts any document on computer to Braille instantly,” explains Rakshith.“The data is sent serially from the computer to the micro-controller where it actuates a sequence of vibrators thus impressing upon paper to form corresponding Braille letter of the received English alphabet. This way any text document on the computer can be converted into Braille text with ease.”

However,Rakshith and his friends have taken the concept even further to create a Digital Braille Pad. This will allow visually impaired students to take their exams without assistance. Currently in most schools they depend on other students to write for them while they dictate. The Digital Braille Pad would free them of this necessity. The pad simply reverses what the Digital Braille Book does.

“The Digital Braille Pad uses a micro-controller to enter Braille codes into the computer just as any other normal keyboard,” explains an excited Rakshith.“This will then convert the Braille code into English alphabets or any other language depending upon the code conversion”. They have already developed a prototype for both the Digital Braille Book and the pad and successfully tested each of them on blind students. However Rakshith points out, “We are trying to improve the design by reducing the size of the models and increasing the number of cells in the Braille Book so that many letters can be displayed simultaneously.”

Meanwhile, Rakshith continues to innovate furiously in the field of assistive technology. Going beyond the classroom he has come up ASHWA, an autonomous vehicle for the visually impaired. And it’s not just the visually challenged he intends to help. Rakshith and his friends are working to develop a device that converts sign language into speech with the help of image processing. Other projects include an Unmanned Fire-fighting Robot, an online health care solutions provider, and a process that helps generate electricity from traffic on roads.

Having completed his bachelors in Electronics and Communication from RV College of Engineering, Bangalore, Rakshith is currently employed as a software engineer in the research wing of a multinational conglomerate. However the Nicola Tesla disciple intends to return to his true calling pretty soon - a rebel and a social innovator with an entire list of causes. 

The students who took on car thieves:

You used them for shopping until now, but QR codes could soon help you in securing your vehicles.

At least that’s what Arun Balaji, Dhanraj. J and Dhanaraj. S, collectively called the Beta Adroits, are trying to accomplish with their innovative solution to on-campus security. “There were a number of cases in our college where our college mates had their bikes stolen,” says Balaji. “It was during the same period we were also extensively exposed to the brand new smartphone technology and found out how it could be used to scan QR codes. It was then that an idea dawned on us. Why not create sophisticated QR codes and fix them on vehicles. They can be scanned using smartphones and also webcams,” he adds.

The three, who are all pursuing their masters degree in Computer Applications from Sona College of Technology, Salem, Tamil Nadu have already completed 75 per cent of the source code and are almost ready to implement the security system on their campus.

The reception to the idea has been tremendous with both college professors and students eager to see their mechanism in action. They soon plan on introducing the system in other college campuses across Chennai. Indeed, if successful, their security system using QR codes would not just effectively curb vehicle theft on college campuses, it would also make screening vehicles easier in housing societies, office campuses and parking lots. With the number of car thefts rising every day the Beta Adroits Security System answers a very immediate need.

Their ingeniously simple solution, they say is the product of simply expanding one’s mental horizons and rethinking the way we use existing technology. Are we using the available technology  to its full potential? The answer, they say, may surprise us. “The scope of other technologies can be increased as well. There are lots of students thinking that way, who have come up with similar innovations. We are constantly looking at how to innovatively use what we have,” explains an excited Arun.

Automation is another thing that interests this group of young innovators. Tired of getting into trouble every time they forget their driving license or insurance papers, they are looking to collectively come up with a system that will automate the verification of vehicle documents. Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention and even innovation.

The three are currently working on various individual projects as a part of their internships. 24 year old Arun Balaji is working on a ‘Data Integration Hub’, while Dhanraj S is working to create a ‘Developer portal’. And Dhanaraj J is helping a company create a system to combat money laundering.However, each is aiming to use their unique brand of innovation to get started on their own. Their approach can be condensed in their own words. According to the Beta Adroits, “An innovator is someone who takes a different perspective on things from others. He/she might attract ridicule in the beginning but success is never out of reach."

The student who created a mobile classroom:

 

 

“A classroom is generally a box with 4 walls and a blackboard on one side,” says budding architect Jayshil Patel, “I came up with the whole idea of modifying the same box in a different version making it modular and mobile”. The result is Baksha, a modular moveable classroom that can be transported to remote places and villages devoid of any educational infrastructure. Thus, bringing education literally to the doorstep of disadvantaged communities.

Having been forced to go to boarding school because there was no quality senior-secondary school nearby, Jayshil says he couldn't help but think of those students who had absolutely no access to any form of education and had to travel miles just to get to a classroom. “Due to the sheer scale of the population in India, education is a luxury not a right; especially for the poor and down trodden” he says. This made him rethink the whole concept of school and classroom, and sparked off the idea for a moveable classroom that would bring education to children, particularly in the rural areas, instead of forcing them away from their homes. The concept of Baksha was thus, born. While examples are rife, across the world, of mobile vans being used to provide books and other educational materials to people on the go, there are several unique features that set Jayshil's innovation apart.

Although, it functions primarily as a classroom, Baksha’s flexible nature allows it to be used for other purposes as well. “The modular classroom with an area of 21 square metres is equipped with the latest teaching techniques, storage space, modular furniture and public utility services. As the furniture is modular it aligns itself with the floor” Jayshil explains. “Fusing a few of the Baksha units together, it can be utilized for performing various other activities. It can be converted into a relief camp, clinic, polio booth centre, etc”

Besides being multi-purpose  and versatile Baksha is also environmentally friendly. Built using Medium-Density Fibreboard (MDF) it uses solar panels for electricity and is economical in the long run. It is also relatively easy to transport. Jayshil’s ‘box of life’ can easily be attached to a truck, train or a helicopter depending on where it needs to be transported.

He further adds, “The structure is transparent so it gives an eye for natural light and ventilation. Sound-proofing materials are also used. It can also be raised on stilts which protects it from rain.” However, despite the overwhelming positives, the 22-year-old graduate of Sardar Vallabhai Patel Institute of Technology is finding it extremely difficult to get adequate resources for his project. As a result he is yet to create a prototype. He is currently looking at government and corporate backing to help get his idea off the ground.

Innovation Jockey’s, he says has given a great platform and the confidence to pursue other ideas and innovations. And he doesn’t intend to stop. A conscientious architect he wants to innovate in the field of sustainable buildings. “I am working on a concept home, which would be the first Lead and Griha certified” says an excited Jayshil.

However, early challenges and hurdles have already made the 22 year old wise beyond his years. An innovator he says, like his idol Steve Jobs needs to have tremendous belief in himself and his ideas in order to fully succeed. For that one has to be willing to put up with the occasional failure.