Indian student trio emerges first runner-up in Microsoft's Imagine Cup World Championship

An Indian student trio has emerged the first runner-up in Microsoft's prestigious Imagine Cup World Championship final held in Seattle for their innovative smart automated anti-pollution and drug delivery mask.

Aakash Bhadana and his friends Vasu Kaushik and Bharat Sundal developed "Caeli", the world's first smart automated anti-pollution and drug delivery mask specifically designed for asthmatic and chronic respiratory patients, which won the first position in the Asia Regional Final contest held in Sydney in February.

The championship was won by the Team EasyGlucose from the United States which won USD 100,000 and a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

"Huge congratulations to team EasyGlucose from the USA, our 2019 ImagineCup World Champion! His DeepLearning non-invasive blood glucose level monitor won USD 100K and a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella," Microsoft Imagine Cup tweeted.

"Congratulations to our 2019 ImagineCup 2nd place winners, Team Caeli from India, who developed a smart automated anti-pollution drug delivery mask and won Surface laptops and USD 40,000 in Azure Grants. We can't wait to see what you do next!," it said.

"This year's 3rd place ImagineCup winner was team Finderr from the UK for their solution to empower visually impaired users to find lost items with a phone. They won USD 30,000 in Azure Grants. Keep on innovating," it said.

Every year, Imagine Cup celebrates the top student teams that bring their biggest, boldest ideas to life. Each team creates an original technology project from start to finish while competing on a global stage for the title of World Champion.

Caeli is a sleek, portable, easy-to-fit-inside-your-pocket nebulizer and a customized mask. Drug doses can be scheduled through the app.

In case of breathing difficulties, the app allows the user to switch on the intelligent mode that provides instant relief drugs. The app also monitors air quality in real-time and helps choose the least polluted route to travel from one place to another.

"Caeli works on multi-disciplinary technologies and makes effective use of hardware capabilities and software intelligence. The device usage and sensor data is processed on the Azure platform," Sundal had said in Melbourne after winning the first prize.