Bangalore. March 12, 2012:
Technology Review is published by the Cambridge, USA based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). TR 35, is an annual list honoring innovators under 35 who are tackling important problems in transformative ways.
Bangalore’s Anirudh Sharma, 24, who designed a shoe that guides the visually impaired to the direction they need to go, has been named Indian Innovator of the Year under the age of 35 by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Technology Review.
Sharma was among five from Bangalore in this year’s list of 20 innovators, the largest number from any city, once again highlighting Bangalore’s strength in technology innovation. The others are Shirish Goyal, 27, Vikas Malpani, 28, Sumeet Yamdagni, 29, and Animesh Nandi, 33.
BREAKPROOF TECHNIQUE
Sharma’s solution, called Le Chal can be fitted on any shoe, and includes a circuit board in the heel and vibrators on each side of the shoe. It’s waterproof and breakproof. The user begins by speaking the destination on Google Maps, using an app running on an Android smart phone. A proximity sensor in the front of the shoe also alerts the user to obstacles it can detect up to 10 ft away.
Sharma works for HP Labs in human-computer interaction.Asked about the award, Sharma said it should bring more attention to the product. “We need a lot of money for the project, and there’s a long way to go before we can commercialize it,” he told STOI.
Shirish Goyal, a computer science graduate from Amritsar, came to Bangalore in 2010 to work in Accenture Technology Labs. He then went on to found LinkSmart Technologies which developed a tamper detection and originality verification solution. The technology is delivered in the form of labels and specialized scanners. Once the label is applied on a product, the scanner can detect if the product has been opened or tampered with.
Vikas Malpani helped develop an online portal called commonfloor.com that addresses a user’s complete residential requirements, such as searching for an apartment, facilitating interactions within an apartment community, and connecting to relevant service providers. According to Vikas, “I am very happy that our efforts at CommonFloor have been recognized by MIT Technology Review. Today, living in an apartment can become difficult without the right access to information and services. We believed that, given the spurt in huge residential communities in our cities coupled with a heavy migrant population, a unified platform for residents and associations was imperative. This led us to create CommonFloor.com”.
PERSONALIZED TOUCH Sumeet Yamdagni developed an optical sensing technology to monitor the health of structures. Sensors detect strain and temperature, and can be used to monitor the health of structures as varying as bridges and aircraft. Animesh Nandi, who works at Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs India, has been recognized for work that enables users to avail personalized services without having to reveal sensitive profile information to the content or service providers.
