KOCHI: Imagine a soldier on the border having a smart jacket with the capacity to alert the wearer of an imminent attack besides communicating the location of the enemy on a real time basis. A team of youngsters in Kochi won the first prize at the two-day hackathon for product start-ups developing smart solutions for everyday problems. The prototype of the safety jacket was developed by Ajay Sangwan, Rohit T. and Vivek Jose from Kochi’s Maker Village electronics incubator under their “Quick response eco-systems for Border Security Forces” project.
Apart from the smart jacket, the team also developed an IT-enabled hardware device which can be installed along borders to detect human presence and alert the control room. According to the developers, the device has passive infrared sensors which measure thermal radiations which would help to distinguish between human and other presence. The two-day ‘Hack2help’ event was jointly hosted by US Consulate General Chennai and Learning Links Foundation with the support of the Kerala Start up Mission, Maker Village and Science Society of India. The hackathon, held at the Kerala Technology Innovation Zone, had 120 students comprising 30 teams participating from colleges across Kerala.
A group of students from School of Engineering, Cochin University of Science and Technology won the second prize for coming up with a technology solution to address the problem of dirty public toilets in India. Samir Dayal Singh, Mayank Raj, Abhinav Gautam and Shantanu Garg were the team members. Jithin M S, Govindan Nampoothiri, Jobin Joseph and Clinz Stephen of Saintgits College of Engineering bagged the third prize for developing a web portal that helps farmers sell their products direct to the end customer. Sivaprasad K, Arshad M P, Manikandan Vijayan and Gokuladas V R of College of Engineering, Cherthala won the fourth prize for their ‘Augmented Reality-based’ dissection tool for learning that eliminates the need for lab dissection of animals.
