Blind navigation aid Indian winner of Microsoft's Imagine Cup 2006

Earlier in the year, Microsoft Corporation gave a call to young IT innovators around the globe to stretch their imaginations and innovate to showcase their software development skills.

Almost 12,000 students from across India responded, bringing out interesting solutions before the panel of judges for Microsoft's 'Imagine Cup 2006'.

Of the 16 teams shortlisted to participate in the national finals of the Imagine Cup held in Bangalore on Monday, one managed to make it to the worldwide finals to be held at Agra in August this year.

Microsoft, which had chosen 'health' as the area of focus this year, is holding the finals of the Imagine Cup in India for the first time, since its inception four years back.

The finalists included two teams from Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Communication Technology (DA-IICT) based out of Gandhinagar in Gujarat and a team from NIT, Jamshedpur in Ranchi. A team from DA-IICT made it to the global finals.

"We imagined a device which will allow the visually handicapped people across the world to see and move like a normal person," said Rahul Sawhney, member of a team from DA-IICT, Gandhinagar that has come up with Sonique, inspired by the echo-location technique used by bats to sense the environment.

Sonique, an electronic aid consisting of a hardware module and a software platform, enables the blind and visually imparied to use ultrasonic sensor technology to sense the environment by emitting waves and calculating distances of objects on the path of movement. Once the signals from the sensors is processed, the data relating to the distance of an object is sent to a mobile device.

The software platform on the mobile device then uses the data to create a 'sonic' map of the scene in front of the person and allows him to interpret the spatial sound map of the surroundings generated by the Sonique software. "This will allow a person to navigate easily avoiding all possible obstacles, whether they are static or in motion," said Deepak Jagdish, a member of the team.

The team from NIT, Jamshedpur has come out with a solution to make the medical diagnostic system cheaper and accessible to all. 'InternalImaging' as the solution is called, includes a handheld palm-top based imaging and diagnostic system capable of producing reports of ECG, EEG, EMG, chest congestion, X-ray and CAT scan.

"This can address the cost factor and the bulky size of the devices presently used. The device will range between Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 instead of the usual costs of around $4,000," said Abhisek Singh, a NIT, Jamshedpur team member.

This year, around 65,000 students from 181 countries participated in the Imagine Cup. The team adjudged as the winner will win a cash award of $25,000 from Microsoft Corporation.

Besides, Microsoft will also introduce the teams to venture capitalists and start-up companies with the help of which they would be able to commercialise their innovations, said Sheila Gulati, director, developer and platform evangelism, Microsoft India.