view in one page and print
We are pleased to state that students of our institute have won the prestigious GE-Edison Challenge 2010.
Team provided two innovative solutions to tackle the problems of scarcity of doctors and improving the efficiency of currently used diagnostics technique (AFB test) for Tuberculosis from 30% to above 80%. Team also proposed two novel techniques for complete diagnosis of Tuberculosis.
The team came first on all-India basis and awarded a grand prize of Rs. 5.0 lakhs, a rolling trophy for the institute and citation/award.
Members of Deja-BHU Team were:
1. Devender Maun- Team Leader (4th year B. Tech Ceramics) Email: devender.maun@gmail.com.
2. Mohit Modi- (5th IDD Bio-chemical) Email: mohitmodi88@gmail.com.
3. Harsh Agarwal (4th year B Tech Metallurgy) Email: harsh1088@gmail.com
4. Amey Baokar (4th year IDD Ceramics) Email: ameybaokar10@gmail.com
Team- Deja-BHU with model
About the team’s solution to the rural healthcare problem:
Health problems in rural areas are many and diverse. We wanted to give a generalized technological solution which can be applied to any Primary Health Centre or any other medical center in rural area. So, we decided to start with an extensive survey and analysis of rural life and health facilities in rural area. A small village named Ramna located in Varanasi, Eastern Uttar Pradesh (on NH- 2), which is considered to be a very backward part of the India, was chosen. We carried out survey along with discussion with villagers. We tried to analyze their lifestyle, factors affecting their health, existing health systems, loopholes in existing systems, ineffective government policies and even tested some of our ideas. We carried out an extensive survey in Ramna which gave us an idea about their living conditions and mind-set. We toured and explored sub-PHC (in Ramna), Kashi Vidhyapeeth PHC (Ramna’s main PHC), Tuberculosis Units (TU), government hospitals and even district hospitals. This helped us in understanding the existing system and problems faced by people living in rural areas in Varanasi area. From detailed analysis, we selected the problem of tuberculosis, which was more out of need rather than interest.
To come up with a generalized solution, a lot of data crunching was done so as to tackle all sorts of problems and not just problems faced at Kashi Vidhapeeth PHC. Data from district hospitals to TUs were collected and analyzed to understand problems and short-coming of existing model. Our solutions to the problems of diagnosis of Tuberculosis were proposed after a deep understanding of the problems faced in existing techniques employed by PHCs. A detailed technological solution was proposed keeping in mind its incorporation in existing government plan. Proposed solution is suited for PHC in rural areas and solution has been generalized so as to be effective and appropriate for any PHC, not just Kashi Vidhyapeeth PHC. Four new concepts/ideas were developed after careful examination of problems, factors affecting them and feasibility of solutions. These solutions are inter-related which make a comprehensive solution, which can be generalized for any PHC. Instruments/modifications in techniques are such that they can be easily accommodated in existing model employed by government’s National Rural Health Mission (2005- 2012). A brief idea is given below about problems addressed and our solution:
A) VIRTUAL DOCTOR:
Problem: Shortage of medical staff at PHCs
Our solution: Software that will have enough intelligence that it can act as a substitute for doctor in suggesting diagnosis tests.
B) SMEAR TEST:
Problem: Solely used in PHCs for diagnosis but has poor sensitivity
Our solution Part-1: We have proposed a new instrument that can automatically count the bacteria and in less time, than existing method. A practical demonstration was done at PHC in presence of CMO of PHC. Calculated sensitivity is more than double of existing method.
Our solution Part-2: A new technique of coagulation has been proposed and high efficiency was established by practical demonstration.
D) OTHER TECHNIQUES
Problem: In case of smear negative, no other technique was present for detection
Our Solution: A new method of sensor based detection was proposed for smear negative cases so as to cover all kinds of cases. An innovative idea was proposed for improving the follow-up of treatment through X-ray machine.
The winning team from IT-BHU
http://www.ge.com/jfwtc/edisonchallenge/winners.html
IT BHU are GE Edison Challenge 2010 Winners
The 10 teams that made it to the finals of the GE Edison Challenge 2010 were all set with their solutions on what is plaguing the Healthcare industry today. Munesh Makhija, CTO, GE Healthcare India said, " This year's GE Edison Challenge dealt with 3 healthcare issues prevalent in India - Early cardiovascular disease detection, Infant mortality and Tubercular Diagnosis. I was impressed to see that the ideas the students had to offer were very innovative, cost effective and more importantly solutions that could reach remote underdeveloped areas of the country."
Winners
It was the team from Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Deja-BHU that came out trumps. The winning team's project was based on a solution for early detection of Tuberculosis that involved the use of an Intelligent AFB Test and Virtual Doctor. The innovation of the idea was amplified by the fact that the automated database compilation was UID compatible. The uniqueness of the project is that it can be applied to any village and not just the one that they studied. The team received a cash award of Rs.5 lakhs."
___________________________________________________
About the ‘GE Edison Challenge’
It is a unique science and engineering competition that challenges the imagination and technical expertise of tomorrow’s inventors. GE launched this national contest back in 2008 with the aim of finding the best scientific and engineering talent. The ‘GE Edison Challenge’ epitomizes imaginative thinking, technical innovation, engineering, cutting-edge industrial design and in-depth business knowledge. The competition provides an opportunity for the best and brightest students of India’s finest technical institutions to provide solutions to some of the country’s most pressing issues.
This year, the program challenged students to provide innovative solutions in the area of rural healthcare. The task given to the participants was to choose a rural community with about five hundred to one thousand houses near their home or college, and understand the challenges faced by Community Healthcare Centres in these villages when it comes to infant care solutions and early detection and diagnosis of Tubercolosis and Cardiovascular diseases. They were then required to propose a novel technology/methodology or even innovate on an existing technology to create a solution that is sustainable, cost-effective and affordable, thus improving the quality of healthcare imparted in these clinics.
________________________________________________
Additional Links:
*10 finalists on GE Edison challenge website:
http://www.ge.com/jfwtc/edisonchallenge/finalists_2010.html
EDISON CHALLENGE 2010
The Edison Challenge this year is to design an innovative technological solution to address healthcare challenges faced in rural areas. Your task is to come up with the solution for a specific problem faced by a Public Health Center (PHC) or Non-Government Organization (NGO) setup in rural India, which caters to about five hundred to one thousand houses.
Major healthcare challenges identified are: (click each one for more details)
· Technology for Tuberculosis Diagnosis
· Early Screening for Cardiovascular Disease
What you have to do is to pick one or more of these topics, understand this community’s healthcare requirements, investigate the available solutions, and then propose a novel technology/methodology that is innovative, workable in a rural setup and provides good value proposition for users and customers and submit the same to take part in this challenge.
Winning solutions in this challenge should exhibit good understanding of how healthcare is provided in the rural setting and how technology can be used innovatively to overcome the limitations. A team should ideally consist of students from both medical schools and technology institutions. This will enable them to address the healthcare problem with the appropriate technology solution.
Your entry will be judged based on the following criteria:
1. Innovation and Novelty of the idea
2. Technical Feasibility
3. Value to the end customer
This is your chance to make a difference to the world we live in!
________________________
GE EDISON CHALLENGE 2010: The Finalists in Alphabetical Order
Sl No | Team Name | Institution Name |
1 | Changemechers | Indian Inst. of Technology, Kharagpur |
2 | Deja-BHU | Inst. of Technology (Banaras Hindu Univ.), Varanasi |
3 | Gram-Dhanvantari (IIT Bombay) | Indian Inst. of Technology, Mumbai |
4 | HeartBeat | Indian Inst. of Technology, Kharagpur |
5 | IWANJAU | Sri Jayachamrajendra College of Engineering, Mysore |
6 | Mycobrats | Sastra Univ., Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu |
7 | Nano.skm | Sastra Univ., Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu |
8 | New Age Innovators | Indian Inst. of Technology, Kharagpur |
9 | Rural_Focus | Indian Inst. of Technology, Kharagpur |
10 | Thinkers | Indian Inst. of Technology, Kharagpur |
These 10 teams will participate in the Final Round to be held at John F Welch Technology Centre, Bangalore, India on 9th and 10th December 2010.
______________________________________________
*Here is the official press release from GE, India:
For Immediate Release
Students from IT BHU win ‘GE Edison Challenge 2010’; walk away with Rs. 5 lakhs of award money!
Winners-Solution involved the use of Virtual Doctor and an intelligent AFB test with a possibility to keep track of defaulters after integration with the new UID System
Runners up – proposed solutions in containing infant mortality rate in rural India with the help of LEDs and other low cost raw materials
Bangalore 10th December 2010: The third edition of ‘GE Edison Challenge’ held at the John F Welch Technology Centre (GE JFWTC) in Bangalore, GE’s largest multi disciplinary research centre (outside the US), saw Team Deja-BHU from IT BHU emerge as winners and were awarded the grand prize of Rs. 5 lakhs. The winning team’s entry was lauded by a panel of judges comprising Dr. A.S. Rao, Director, Center for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship, IIM, Ahmedabad, Dr. Uday Patil, Consultant Radiologist, Manipal Hospital, Bangalore, Dr. Mano Manoharan, General Manager, GE Global Research, India and Mr. Karan Verma, Manager, Maternal & Infant Care, GE Healthcare, India.
As a part of the Challenge, students were required to study Community Healthcare Centres in Villages with population of 500 people or more and understand their challenges.
Commenting on the occasion Mr. Mano Manoharan, General Manager, GE Global Research said; “The 2010 edition of the ‘GE Edison Challenge’ is special as it encouraged students to come up with solutions for some of the toughest problems that India is facing today in the field of rural healthcare. I was personally touched by the passion of the participants and their understanding of the ground realities shown by their visits to rural clinics. I was also impressed with the balance of innovative ideas and practicality demonstrated by both the winning team and the runners’ up.
The winning team’s project was based on a solution for early detection of Tuberculosis that involved the use of an Intelligent AFB Test and Virtual Doctor. The innovation of the idea was amplified by the fact that the automated database compilation was UID compatible. The uniqueness of the project is that it can be applied to any village and not just the one that they studied.
Runners up – Team IWANJAU from Sri Jayachamrajendra College of Engineering, Mysore and New Age Innovators from IIT Kharagpur received a cash award of Rs. 1 lakh each for their proposed solutions in containing infant mortality rate in rural India. Team Thinkers from IIT Kharagpur won the Employee Choice Award.
"This year's GE Edison Challenge dealt with 3 healthcare issues prevalent in India – Early cardiovascular disease detection, Infant mortality and Tubercular Diagnosis. I was impressed to see that the ideas the students had to offer were very innovative, cost effective and more importantly solutions that could reach remote underdeveloped areas of the country." added Munesh Makhija, CTO, GE Healthcare, India.
Last year’s Edison Challenge saw students from reputed engineering institutions pulling their thoughts together to offer solutions in the field of renewable and sustainable energy.
70 teams from some of India’s leading technical schools registered to showcase their solutions at the Edison Challenge 2010.The 10 finalists included 5 teams from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 1 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, 1 from Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore and 2 from Sastra University, Thanjavur.
The evaluation was on the basis of innovation and novelty, feasibility and potential impact of idea, customer value / commercialization and quality of compilation. Their presentation abilities were also tested to see if they could deliver their message clearly, bring clarity of data and solutions presented and showcase creativity and imagination in the tools used for presentation.
About the ‘GE Edison Challenge’
It is a unique science and engineering competition that challenges the imagination and technical expertise of tomorrow’s inventors. GE launched this national contest back in 2008 with the aim of finding the best scientific and engineering talent. The ‘GE Edison Challenge’ epitomizes imaginative thinking, technical innovation, engineering, cutting-edge industrial design and in-depth business knowledge. The competition provides an opportunity for the best and brightest students of India’s finest technical institutions to provide solutions to some of the country’s most pressing issues.
This year, the program challenged students to provide innovative solutions in the area of rural healthcare. The task given to the participants was to choose a rural community with about five hundred to one thousand houses near their home or college, and understand the challenges faced by Community Healthcare Centres in these villages when it comes to infant care solutions and early detection and diagnosis of Tubercolosis and Cardiovascular diseases. They were then required to propose a novel technology/methodology or even innovate on an existing technology to create a solution that is sustainable, cost-effective and affordable, thus improving the quality of healthcare imparted in these clinics.
About The GE John F. Welch Technology Center
The GE John F. Welch Technology Centre (GE JFWTC), Bangalore is General Electric's (GE) first and largest integrated multidisciplinary Research and Development Center outside the US. Close to 4000 scientists, researchers and engineers work on GE's on global technology and engineering programs that is shaping the future of almost all GE businesses including energy, aviation, transportation, consumer and industrial and Healthcare and help create game-changing technologies and innovations to ensure GE's growth and leadership.
About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) is a diversified infrastructure, finance and media company taking on the world’s toughest challenges. From aircraft engines and power generation to financial services, medical imaging, and television programming, GE operates in more than 100 countries and employs about 300,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.ge.com.
For further information please contact:
Sherin Varghese/ Parikshith Sankritya
Genesis Burson-Marsteller
Mob: +91 9916115584/ +91 9916115584
Email: sherin.varghese@bm.com/ parikshith.sankritya@bm.com
_____________________________________________
The report was covered in DNA newspaper:
http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_young-innovators-give-low-cost-healthcare-solutions_1480146
Young innovators give low-cost healthcare solutions
Published: Sunday, Dec 12, 2010, 12:14 IST
By Maitreyee Boruah | Place: Bangalore | Agency: DNA
The challenge was to find noble, affordable and accessible healthcare solutions to millions of rural Indians and a group of young innovatorsproved that intelligent combination of science and technology can solve looming healthcare crises.
Ten teams from top engineering institutes came together on Friday to showcase innovative ideas pertaining to rural healthcare solutions at the campus of GE John F Welch Technology Centre at the Edison Challenge 2010.
Team Deja-BHU from Institute of Technology under Benaras Hindu Universitywon the first prize for creating a concept with the help of which paucity of doctors in rural areas could be solved. The team devised an adaptive, case-based screening technique ‘virtual doctor’ to reduce load on medical staff.
Teams IWANJAU from Sri Jayachamrajendra College of Engineering, Mysore, and New Age Innovators from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, won the second and third prizes, respectively. The Employees’ Choice award was given to team Thinkers, again from IIT-Kharagpur.
While IWANJAU came up with an ‘infant warmer’, New Age Innovators created an ‘incubator’, both low-cost which could help in reducing the infant mortality rate.
Thinkers created a low-cost solution to diagnose tuberculosis with the help of a stethoscope to detect whether a person has tuberculosis by measuring the rate of his right lung.
All the innovations were given prizes worth Rs5,000.
Hundred teams across the country submitted their proposals for the Edison Challenge 2010. Ten teams made it to the finals. The finalists included five teams from IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Mumbai, Institute of Technology under BHU, two teams from Sastra University, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, and Sri Jayachamrajendra College of Engineering from Mysore.
The theme of the third edition of science and engineering competition was ‘Enabling rural healthcare’. The teams were asked to provide noble technological solutions which are noble, affordable and accessible to be made available at public health centres in villages.
The winning team of the Edison Challenge 2010 received a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh. Three major healthcare challenges — tuberculosis diagnosis, infant care solution and early screening for cardiovascular disease — faced by rural India were the subjects on which young technocrats tried to provide solution.
Among the criteria on which the teams were judged were innovation and novelty, feasibility of idea and customer value/commercialisation.
“I am highly impressed by the innovative solutions brought by the students here. All the participants are highly motivated,” said Dr AS Rao, director-innovations, Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), who was one of the judges at the event.
“The area of affordable and accessible rural healthcare solutions is something bothering everyone. I am happy that young students have identified the problem areas and tried to bring some innovative solutions.”
The three other judges were Dr Uday Patil, consultant radiologist, Manipal Hospital, Bangalore, Dr Mano Manoharan, general manager, GE Global Research, and Karan Verma, manager, Maternal and Infant Care, GE Healthcare.
“The Edison Challenge this year is to design an innovative technological solution to address healthcare challenges faced in rural areas. We are also looking for innovative ideas,” said Manoharan.
“We are also giving a platform for youth to look at some of the real time issues of the country and provide solution through the help of science and technology.”
Rural healthcare is a serious issue the country is facing today. Most of the rural inhabitants of the country do not have accessible and affordable healthcare solutions.
At a time when 70% of the Indian population is staying in rural areas, only 20% of medicos are working in the country’s hinterland.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Leave a comment
(if you having troubles, try posting your comment on this page or send an email to chronicle @ itbhuglobal.org)Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP
Congrts Guys ...u make us proud
January 3, 2011 7:21 PM