PUNE: Two Bangalorean boys, who have developed mobile apps that find solutions to farmers’ woes and combat hunger, are a major major draw at the exhibition organised on the sidelines of the fourth Education Working Group meeting (EdWG) here.
Thirteen-year-old Shayyan Ahmad and 15-year-old Swaminathan Vivekanand, who are here to showcase their mobile apps, calmly and confidently explain their innovations to hundreds of school children, teachers, and parents, including officials and G20 delegates, who have been thronging daily the exhibition, which started on June 17 and will conclude on June 22.
Most of those who leave after visiting the CBSE stall at the exhibition hall have a word of praise for the two boys, who are students of DPS Bangalore North, for their zeal and passion in finding solutions to problems that plague the world, especially India.
For 13-year-old Ahmad, a student of class 8, the meaning of ‘hunger’ changed when on a family outing, he saw the amount of food being wasted and how street children ravenously eat the dumped food. The sight moved him so much that he created a mobile app ‘Hunger Helpline.’
His innovative solution seeks to address the dual challenge of food waste and inadequate access to nutrition.
Similarly, Vivekanand, a class 10 student in the same school, created a mobile app, ‘Livest: Empowering Farmers.’
Driven by a deep concern for the plight of farmers, Vivekanand developed the app to serve as an all-encompassing farmer companion, providing invaluable assistance across every facet of farming, from sowing to marketing and export - in fact, it is a one-stop app.
Leveraging advanced image recognition and machine learning algorithms, Livest offers flaw detection capabilities, enabling farmers to identify diseases, pests, and nutrient deficiencies in their crops accurately. By simply capturing images of their plants, farmers can receive comprehensive analyses and diagnoses from the app.
Speaking with TNIE, Ahmad said at one end, there is a waste of food, and at the other, there is death due to starvation. “I wanted a simple, user-friendly solution. By installing the app and entering basic information, users can arrange to collect surplus food from their households.”
He also uses AI and Data Science to map the areas with maximum demand and supply, enabling him to allocate his resources judiciously and effectively based on the areas where the food donors are available in whole numbers.
“I feel really good that my work was appreciated and that I could help the world in some way,” said Ahmad, who is also leading a team working on the design of the F1 car.
P. Renuka, who teaches grades 11 and 12 at DPS Bangalore North and accompanied the boys to Pune, said from school students to education ministry officials to G20 delegates, everyone was impressed by the apps of the two young innovators.
“We are very proud of them. They are an inspiration for others. They have made the DPS schools and Bengaluru very proud,” she told TNIE.
Among the officials, who were all praise for them, was J. P. Pandey, Director of the union education ministry’s Department of Education and Literacy. “Their work is awe-inspiring. The government is committed to nurturing and encouraging such groundbreaking innovations,” he said. Impressed by their work, he has connected them with Intel and IBM.
Ahmad’s mother, Sunbul Shafaque, an architect, said that she is happy and proud that her child has compassion and empathy for other people’s problems. Ahmad’s father is an IT professional.
“From childhood, he was busy innovating new techniques. He also has his own YouTube channel where he posts science-related work,” she said.
According to officials, the two projects have been prepared as part of an AI Startup Schools initiative by 1M1B Foundation, an NGO, in partnership with IBM and showcased by CBSE at the G20 exhibition in Pune.