JYOTI RANJAN SAHOO: INNOVATOR
He could’ve been called the father of Total Recall if he wasn’t just a 16-year-old kid with virtual panache. Jyoti Ranjan Sahoo’s first interactive programme for the blind, Eyerinator, led him to his current work in progress ‘Reli Glass’. Jyoti is obsessed with how we interact with the virtual world. His social media profile describes Reli Glass as “A competitor of Google Glass which is right now under research and innovation. It is the next big thing you can ever expect.” It’s about creating an alternate reality; with a wearable platform named Reli Glass, anyone can try out different clothes virtually before settling on one. “A student can read a book and take notes virtually with Reli Glass. Even making calls will become more advanced as two people using the Glass will be able to see their virtual self inside the spectacles during the call,” Jyoti says. He wants to go beyond just a phone call. “ If an individual wears Reli Glass for his entire lifetime, it will map his behaviour and create an archive of memories. Teaching a complicated subject using live virtual models is a future possibility,” explains Jyoti.
His current model has been approved by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) under Government of India (GoI) Department of Science and Technology (DST). The model has been sent to Japan to develop further. Jyoti has also decided to make his research work on Reli Glass available for open source platforms. “I want to make this model a reality instead of limiting it to just a research paper. And this will be possible only if more innovators have access to the blue print,” he says.
His father, Bala Krishna Sahoo, a government employee, says that his son is a self-made scientist.