Meet top 3 teams picked for Google, MeitY backed Build for Digital India programme

Technology company Google on Thursday announced the top three teams qualifying for Build for Digital India - Student Developers Solve for India’ programme.

In October 2019, Google and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) announced the programme to provide a platform to science, technology, and engineering students in India. 

Students were invited to build solutions on themes such as healthcare, agriculture, education, smart cities and infrastructure, mobility and transportation, women safety, digital India, environment and sustainable development goals, accessibility and disability, digital literacy among others.

The programme was concluded in four phases -- application, learn and build, feedback and the final showcase event. 

Some 7,000 students from more than a thousand universities in India sent their applications. Google supported the students to build their prototypes by providing them access to curated content across technologies like mobile, web, machine learning and cloud.

Out of over 3000 project submissions by various teams and individuals for the feedback phase of the programme, Google shortlisted 61 projects to attend the in-person mentorship boot camps across four cities in India.

Top 15 projects for the Build for Digital India pitch event were shortlisted based on the feedback from mentors. 

The top three qualifying teams from the final pitch event are:

1. The Third Eye (Student team from MIT world Peace University, Maharashtra); Theme - smart cities and infrastructure.

The idea was to automate the task of garbage detection through the city in order to facilitate the collection not just from municipality bins, but from the local garbage deposition areas as well. The team ideated the creation of a device that can be attached to public vehicles and record the city visuals in real-time during the commute. The device will keep a track of unmanaged waste and store the data on a central surfer. Garbage collectors can then use the data along with a navigation system to gather the waste more efficiently. 

2. Anukai Solutions (Student team from Chitkara University, Punjab); Theme - smart cities and infrastructure

The team created an internet of things or IoT device called InteLights to capture data related to mobility. Along with data from CCTV cameras, the device adjusts traffic signal timing values by applying computer vision ensuring smooth movement of vehicles and eliminating traffic jams. 

3. ISpeakFree.LY (Student team from Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Maharashtra); Theme - accessibility and disability

The team created an artificial intelligence-based mobile application that acts as a virtual interpreter, enabling a bi-directional conversation and has the ability to convert sign language to speech and vice versa. The application also has certain additional features increasing the user’s overall accessibility for consuming online media and voice-based AI assistants. 

Last week, Google rolled out new features to help digital adoption among small businesses.