BENGALURU: At a time hospitals are overcrowded with patients getting tested for COIVD-19, there’s fear of contracting the virus right at the corridors of the hospital. Six students from Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) had the answer which got them the second prize at the recently-concluded CODE19 online hackathon. The 72-hour hackathon, revolving around the pandemic, was hosted by the Silicon Valley-based Motwani Jadeja Family Foundation. Jithin Sunny, Joel Jogy George, Rohan Rout, Rakshit Naidu, Megha Baid and Shivangi Shukla bagged $5,000 for their solution, TeleVital, which captures a patient’s vital statistics (heart rate, respiratory rate, temperature) remotely through a web cam and browser.
“After consulting doctors, we realised that vital statistics are the deciding factor if a patient needs hospitalisation,” says Sunny, adding that they built a system to check if a person is a virus carrier through their AI-based chatbot, which checks travel history and other symptoms.
The winning entry was of Abhinand C and Shilpa Rajeev from Government College of Engineering,Kannur, who bagged $10,000 for the idea involving a modern virtual classroom. Called iClassroom, it connects students with teachers through a social media-type interface. “It makes learning easier,” says Abhinand.