Bengaluru undergrad students’ develop data-based enviro

Two undergraduate students – Uttam Ramesh and Harini Vijayshankar -- from RV College of Engineering secured the third place in the ‘Innovation for Sustainable Development’
competition organised by ENZEN, a leading global energy and water consultancy and turnkey solution company with headquarters in Bengaluru.

With about 700 entries, the competition was conducted in Birmingham, UK.

The city-based duo was placed third and was given a cash prize of 2,000 US dollars, for their environmental cautioning model -- Satellite-based Environmental Monitoring System (SEMS).

It is a model that uses data from drones and satellites to monitor and audit the imbalances in the ecosystem like illegal constructions, changes in water distribution in an area etc.; it also has an intelligence correction feature to reverse the damage done to the area.

While Uttam worked on the training and construction of the algorithm that goes behind performing the task of the project, Harini focused on the real-time development, which when designed for a large area, must have solid back-end work and strong infrastructure that gives a practical solution.

The duo has been working on the project since March 2018 to obtain aerial images that prevent forest fires and detect pollution in water. They entered the ENZEN hackathon and tweaked the model to match the requirements of the competition.

Many organisations have also come out in support of the project.

Talking to Metrolife, Uttam shared that he is focusing to save the city lakes from reaching the state of Bellandur lake, while Harini is keen on providing an easy user interface that helps everyone to upload multi-spectral images to obtain an analysis of any damaged area.

Currently, the team is approaching many statistical institutes in the city to put their model to use.