Atal Innovation Mission

Lakshmipat Singhania Academy Kolkata is one of the oldest ATL labs in India (2017). This year there are a total of 16 themes available for the students of school under Junior SIH. And all the themes are divided broadly under software and hardware. An ATL Lab provides an ambience to create innovative solutions around those themes.

We have created our Idea on Transport and Logistic, Health care, Tourism, Education, Miscellaneous category. Our idea to solve the potholes in urban areas was selected for the award. A complex problem needs a multipronged approach to solve them. The students use an app to recognize the pothole with the help of GPS and use it as a user interface. It is also supported by automation and hardware research.

First the idea of the Smart India Hackathon is introduced at the school level. Some 200 students show the interest to be part of it. Around 70 students have participated actively in the event. They ponder on a large variety of real life problems around us. We identified around 40 potential ideas to solve those problems. After a month of deliberation, we identified around 10 ideas which stand true on top ten criteria. Once all the ideas are ready for submission we are struck by some technical issue. We tried till late night but failed to solve the problem and left a message on the government site. It was Sunday. Around 11.00AM we received a call from the government office (NIC). It was a big surprise that the Government is working on Sunday. He not only solves the problem but helps the student to submit all the projects. It was the last day of submission. Our 6 projects were selected for the nationwide Grand finale on 12 august. Finally, the project on Transport and Logistics to help solve the problem of potholes efficiently was awarded the Smart India Hackathon and received the fund of Rs 25000/- at Techno International Engineering College-New town. Smart India Hackathon 2022: LSA’s Project Sambhav makes it to top 5 in Transportation and Logistics.

The learning outcome is that if you have a large number of participation, chances of success are good if you follow the process involved in the innovation. A large student base helps better inputs, solutions, canceling out the potential failures at an early stage.

Dipankar Pal,
Lakshmipat Singhania Academy
Kolkata