Young Minds Come Up With Innovations To Tackle Daily Issues


NEW DELHI: A septic tank level monitor, a 'shoe' to easily sow seeds and a device to check cleanliness of utensils -- these are among the thousands of innovative ideas from children to solve a vast range of issues confronted daily by many people in the country. 

Indu Manikpuri from Naxal-hit Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh is among the awardees of the 2016 A P J Abdul Kalam IGNITE Awards by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) who were honoured by President Pranab Mukherjee recently.

Indu, who lost her father in a Naxal attack, came up with an idea of a septic tank level and pressure indicator so that the level of the tank is known and it can be drained before it overflows and causes many problems. 

It not only helps in cleaning the tank on time and maintaining hygiene, but also avoids pollution, which is a major issue in various parts of the country, said Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Science and Technology. 

"It is very useful for the Clean India Movement and the ministry is taking the idea forward," he says.

"It was a pleasure for me to present my idea before the President and to hear his praise was the proudest moment in my life," said Indu. 

She got the idea when she visited her village and saw that the tank was overflowing. She also noticed that the number of toilets in the village is also increasing and with that the problem will only became worse. 

"Nowadays, people in rural areas are getting aware about cleanliness. They are constructing lavatories but overflowing of the septic tank is a major problem," says Manikpuri. 

Her idea of a septic tank pressure record aims to warn of the impending problem well in time so that the tank can be drained. 

Inspired by her maternal uncle, who is a farmer, Subhra Suchismita Pate from Bhubaneswar in Orissa designed shoes with drills fitted into them so that farmers can dig holes as they walk in the field to sow seeds. 

Her uncle suffers from acute backache after long working hours in his farms. The shoes may also contain seed compartments so that they can be easily sown and spread. The rear part of the shoes will have brushes to cover up the holes in which seeds have been sown. 

Sebati Kutruka from Bhubaneswar in Orissa, who was driven by her desire to help her father, designed an agricultural tool for digging sweet potato. 

She came up with a digger, operated by spring mechanism with a rod, so that sweet potatoes can be dug easily. 

Sebati wants to improvise the machine for other vegetables such as yam.
Muskan Jawalkar from Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh has 

come out with an alternative cooler which throws air in all directions. 

"No manufacturer thought about it," said Harsh Vardhan. 

The children also came up with simple and effective solutions for issues like encouraging hand washing. 

Sheereen Shaikh from Delhi suggested that children be reminded with a message written on the cover of the tiffin box -- "wash your hands before you eat food" -- and with another on the inside cover-- "wash your hands after eating your food". 

"I saw small kids eating without washing their hands in rural and slum areas so I thought there should be a way to remind them to wash hand before and after eating," says Shaikh. 

"Not washing hands obviously affects personal hygiene and causes diseases," she says. 

Minister of Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi was also highly impressed by the idea.

"Although it is very simple idea, but is very important and can help kids to remind that it is important to wash hands before and after eating. May be, it should be made mandatory to print these lines by lunch box manufacturers," she says. 

Maidari Devi from East Godavari in Andhra Pradesh also came up with an innovation linked to cleanliness. 

Devi came up with a device that would not only indicate the level of cleanliness of utensils but also reduce manual work of rinsing them. 

"The thought of a machine that predicts cleanliness of utensils struck me when I observed that my mother was cleaning the dishes twice," says Devi. 

Roshan Sodi, from Sukma district of Chhattisgarh came up with idea, to avoid any wrongdoing in the polling booth. 

He suggested a button in the EVMs which can transmit the total number of votes directly to the cloud server as the voting proceeds and also to district Election Commission office if required at regular interval. 

"We received about 55,000 innovative ideas from 458 districts from 16 states and Union territories, out of which we have selected only 31 ideas for the award," said Anil Kumar Gupta founder of the Honey Bee Foundation. 

"We are not just giving the awards, but also trying to turns these ideas into reality. Children are full of ideas and all they need is a platform and we are trying to provide it. They can give us innovative ideas in any of the 32 Indian languages," said Gupta who is also part of NIF. 

Harsh Vardhan also said, "It is wonderful to see so many different ideas from children of various backgrounds. These are not just awards, but are responsibilities to the children to help Indiabecame better." 

NIF, an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, has been actively engaged in promoting creativity and innovation with support from Honey Bee Network.

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Source: PTI