INDRIYAAN
About Imagine Cup:-
The name itself evokes possibilities. The world's premier student technology competition, the Imagine Cup is one way Microsoft is encouraging young people to apply their imagination, their passion, and their creativity to imagining technology innovations that can make a difference in the world today. Thousands of students from all over the world have competed in the Imagine Cup. Beyond the numbers, it is the power of the ideas, the energy, and the enthusiasm of the competitors that make the Imagine Cup the world’s largest and most inclusive student technology competition. The Imagine Cup challenges students to imagine a better world enabled by their own genius, creativity and energy, and provides opportunities for participation in the future of technology, software and computing. Teams develop innovative projects that offer practical applicability and present real-world solutions to real-world problems. "The students who participate in the Imagine Cup represent the next generation of technology and business leaders," says Sanjay Parthasarathy, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's Developer and Platform Evangelism Group. "Their creativity and innovation speak volumes about the promise of technology to really make a difference in peoples' lives and in the way we think, work, and communicate."
Microsoft is committed to empowering students everywhere to connect, innovate, and fulfill their dreams. Each year is part of the ongoing mission to showcase student innovation in technology and art.
The Imagine Cup began in 2003, and has traveled the world from Spain, to Brazil, to Japan, to India. The Imagine Cup competition site for 2006-2007 is Seoul, Korea. The cup itself, a trophy first awarded in 2003 when Software Design was the only category, has spent time with the Software Design champions in the United States (2003-2004), France (2004-2005), Russia (2005-2006), and Italy (2006-present).
The theme of this year’s Imagine Cup “Imagine a world where technology enables a better education for all," is a challenge to the world’s top student technologists to actively contribute to the mission of improving education around the world. Imagine how you would feel if your team's solution became reality and changed the lives of millions worldwide.
About Us:
There are several competitions in Imagine Cup like Embedded challenge, Software challenge, Web Designing etc. A team of Delhi College of Engineering consisting of two third year students, Kumar Ankit (Computer Engineering) and Siddharth Singhal (Information Technology) participated in the Embedded challenge under the guidance of Mr. Rajeev Rai(Lecturer, Computers Department ).
The team has made it to the top15 worldwide .And will be competing with the top 15 at Seoul this august.
The team DCEites India built a device INDRIYAAN as a universal aid for education, assisting most of the challenged people around the world, irrespective of whether the challenge is physical, mental, economic, social or cultural. INDRIYAAN has the capability which that enables blind person to study through features like Dynamic Braille and text to speech etc. Also INDRIYAAN is endowed with functionalities to promote education in rural and remote areas using AM (amplitude modulation) as the communication channel. INDRIYAAN is not just aimed at the education but the overall development of those underprivileged people by connecting them to the world and providing them the much needed information about health, agriculture and social taboos.
BLIND EDUCATION MODULE
TECHNICAL DETAILS :-
“We have developed INDRIYAAN that works on interactive voice response system (IVRS), taking voice as its input, and reads out eBooks to the listener using the widely popular and tested text to speech technology and displaying the same document in Braille script using the concept of Dynamic Braille printing. Dynamic as the name suggests converts any symbol language, in our case, English language to Braille dynamically. The device has an especial feature of conversion of lectures/seminars given by the teachers, into text using the text to speech engine, in real time and then displaying of the same in Braille script using the previously described Dynamic Braille. Besides this basic function of reading and printing eBooks, our device has much other functionality which makes it very easy to use.” says Siddharth
“And to top it all its utility is not limited to the blind since it is also very useful for anyone interested in reading. The Dynamic Braille and certain other features are specific developed to make the device a real world utility for the blinds, empowering them to overcome the hurdles of their disabilities and make themselves educated. For the rural areas, we have INDRIYAAN using the wide range of the current AM (Amplitude Modulation) radio system as the communication channel to control the device placed at remote areas and provide villagers with Primary education, information about advances related to their interests, emergency news, spread health education and much more. The device is controlled dynamically by the base station or the transmitting station and in this way we are trying to overcome the most crucial problem of not having trained professional or teachers in remote/rural areas. More or less this is one of the major reasons to illiteracy in these areas. Besides this INDRIYAAN also has a feature which has been incorporated keeping in mind the deaf people.” adds Kumar Ankit
EFFECT ON SOCIETY:-
The project has Indriyaan is an attempt to help all disabled. Indriyaan is to not only educate the masses but provide them a life where knowledge is free, where health and wealth prevail, a place where everyone is aware and has equal opportunities. Indriyaan is driven by innovation and technology, requires minimum infrastructure and is ready to implement yet no boundaries impede it. And as the team says:”Indriyaan is a pledge to help…”
Research Papers