IIT-Bombay students develop one day detection of malaria, social network access for blind, and more

The final year students of Indian Institute of Technology Bombay’s Industrial Design Centre (IDC) have developed some very useful and in some ways revolutionary products this year – such as a malaria diagnostic system that promises to bring down detection time from four days to one; a product that can make social networking accessible for the visually impaired and an application to provide weather information to grape farmers.

Oinam Khaba has developed a portable device, with a microscope to cut down the Malaria diagnosis time from four days to just one. The device like this: when a blood smear slide is put under the device microscope, it captures the image and the software determines whether it’s positive or negative. The shortlisted positive images are then sent to an expert. Thus making for remote diagnosis as well. Oinam’s project is part of Centre of Social Media Innovations for Communities, a collaborative effort of NTU and NUS at Singapore and IIT Bombay, and has been proposed for funding.

Another product which is focusing the agriculture sector of the country, is iKrishi. iKrishi is an application to provide weather information to grape farmers in hot tropical regions requiring customised, time-sensitive weather information, which is currently inaccessible for individual use. The application, developed by Hrushikesh Chitre, also acts as a platform of interaction for various stakeholders.

Similarly, Shant Sagar’s project aims at making touch phones and social networking sites accessible to the blind. Taking inspiration from the problems visually impaired at the National Association for the Blind (NAB), Worli, and the Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC) faced in putting text on touch phones and their desire to have a system that will allow them to use social networking sites with ease; Shant designed an application that will allow them to input text and numbers easily on touch phones. Sagar has also redesigned a Facebook interface that enables stroke-based inputs and allows text to translate speech.

Other interesting projects include an easy-to-use trekking aid for beginners, redesign of electric fruit dryer to help the agricultural food processing industry and math learning aid in multi-grade/rural schools.

All projects will be showcased at IDC’s annual design degree show, Urdhvam, at IIT Bombay from June 6 to 8 and at the Nehru Centre, Worli, from June 11 to 12. --------

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