"I have a Dream..."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The first edition of Inspire India, launched in Techfest 2011-12 received some of the most innovative ideas right from making self-sustainable eco-friendly green bags for the public to making electricity from the mere sole of a shoe.

Techfest 2012-13 brings back Inspire India with a vision to inspire people to acknowledge the social challenges plaguing India and respond to them effectively, and thereby disembarrass India of social inequities. Inspire India aims to provide a platform for the visionaries to lead movements for social upliftment and progress.

India is beset with impediments like policy paralysis, poverty, diseases, unemployment, corruption and most prominently lack of awareness. There is a general sense of discontent among the people. Though a majority of the populace are in some way conversant with these facts, most tend to tread the easier path of blaming the government for every problem possible or lend a deaf ear to these in accordance to the typical ‘chalta hai’ attitude.

Inspire India invites ideas for changes which can have a strong and lasting impact on the society to tackle the problems head on, pertaining to the society in general. Inspire India beckons the visionaries and innovators to chalk out plans and models that can benefit the society. Observe, envision, innovate and be the change!



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Note: The following themes are just guidelines to help you. You are free to think like an unconventional thinker and come up with great solutions on social issues . So do not limit yourselves to these problem statements.

Indian Governance

India is a Union of States. It is a Sovereign Socialist Democratic Republic with a parliamentary system of government. The Republic is governed in terms of the Constitution of India which was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 26th November 1949 and came into force on 26th January 1950.

The cardinal functions of the Legislature include overseeing of administration, passing of budget, ventilation of public grievances, and discussing various subjects like development plans, international relations, and national policies.

1. E-Governance
   E-Governance is the application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for delivering government services, exchange of information communication transactions, integrating various stand-one systems and services between Government-to-Citizens (G2C), Government-to-Business(G2B),Government-to-Government( G2G) as well as back office processes and interactions within the entire government frame work. An online framework will also make it easier and better to approach the government.
   
   Give ideas to promote E-Governance so as to make common-man life simpler. With a focus on technical solutions, models and ideas are expected that would modernise the present governance framework and speed up the entire process on many fronts. Participants are expected to focus on a single, or multiple if required, aspect of the governance, say for example lodging a FIR, etc. and can build upon this a. effective model worthy enough of replacing the current system.



2. Tourism Industry
   
   • Foreign tourism industry: The Ministry of Tourism is the nodal agency for the formulation of national policies and program and for the co-ordination of activities of various Central Government Agencies, State Governments/UTs and the Private Sector for the development and promotion of tourism in the country. Though ministry of tourism contains several regulating authorities, The current foreign tourism scene in India is way below its potential. Suggest technical/ non-technical to increase/improve the foreign tourism scenario in India.
   • Indian Heritage: India colourful and vibrant, a land as diverse as its people. A mosaic of faiths, cultures, customs and languages that blend harmoniously to form a composite whole. One of the world’s oldest living civilizations - which gave to the world - the concept of zero, the primordial sound Aum…Yoga, and Buddhism. India is a treasury of art, architecture; philosophy, classical dances and music; the mesmerising Taj, the eternal Ganges, the Thar desert, the mighty Himalayas, tropical rainforests, the Cape where the waters of three seas mingle…the rich fauna-snakes, peacocks, Royal Bengal Tiger, lions…India is all of these and more.
   
   Give ideas and technical/non-technical solutions to promote Indian Heritage in the world with the main aim of increasing foreign tourism in India.



3. Youth Participation
   To quote Khuswant Singh, “A bad government is a government elected by good people who do not vote” and, as far as all the elections fought in independent India, statistics reveal that youths constitute the major part (more than 57%) of the people who do not vote. In 2004, 50% of the Indian population was aged 30 years or younger; however, only 35 out of 543 Lok Sabha members (6%) were aged under 35. Nevertheless, a World Values Survey conducted by the World Bank showed that the proportion of people aged 18–24 who identified themselves as "very" or "rather" interested in politics was around 50%, an increase of 15% since 1990. Youth leaders should not be imposed on people. Rather, they should be figured out from the grass root level and groomed up. India is a land of million hidden talents. All they need is a proper platform. But still we are far from the case of a satisfactory participation from the youth in the form of voting and taking up politics as a career.
   
   Suggest technical/non-technical solutions to increase the involvement of the Indian educated youth and professionals in politics.

Health and Sanitation

Mahatma Gandhi said in 1923, “Sanitation is more important than Independence”. Adequate sanitation, together with good hygiene and safe water, are fundamental to good health and to social and economic development. Improvements in one or more of these three components of good health can substantially reduce the rates of morbidity and the severity of various diseases and improve the quality of life of huge numbers of people, particularly children, in developing countries.

Present Situation:
Health is not possible without sanitation. Indians especially in rural areas and urban slums have to be taught about basic sanitation. The severity of the problem in India can be judged from the fact that hardly 33% population has sanitation facility available. Around 400,000 children under five years of age die each year in India due to sanitation related ailments alone. About 226 million people lack access to safe water and about 70 per cent of population (about 800 million) lack basic sanitation facilities. The water related diseases are claiming the lives of about 1.5 million children (500,000 children due to diarrhoea alone) under 5 years and person-days lost in India are estimated to be about 180-200 million a year
The problem of sanitation has to be resolved urgently.

Problems:

1. In developing countries, of the 37 diseases identified as major causes of death, 21 are related to water and sanitation.
2. Water-borne diseases are causing more than 4 million infants and child deaths every year in developing countries.
3. India’s rivers also have high fluoride content, beyond the permissible limit of 1.5ppm, which affects 66 million people.
4. In India, an estimated that 57,000 deaths were attributed to Asthma in 2004 (WHO 2004). As per World Health Organisation (WHO) projections, an estimated 100 million more Asthma patients would be added to the list of existing patients by 2025, mainly due to environmental pollution.
5. Lack of awareness, education and facilities for maintaining basic level of sanitation
6. Around 1,000 children below the age of five die every day in India from diarrhea, hepatitis-causing pathogens and other sanitation-related diseases, according to the report of United Nations Children's Fund.
7. Sewerage networks are not affordable due to financial constraints and exorbitant maintenance and operational costs
8. Even where sewerage network is available, it lacks maintenance and overflow of raw sewage in open drains is common, due to blockage, settlements and inadequate pumping capacities making the situation even worse

Problem Statement: Teams may focus on making available facilities for better sanitation. Any technical solution that can focus on resolving problems such as purifying water containing pollutants for a large supply as well as on a local level is expected.
The problem of asthma and other respiratory diseases can be brought under check largely by controlling air pollution. Teams can focus on technical innovations that can help reduce vehicular and industrial pollution. On a similar note, innovations, technical or otherwise, that would help improve the sewerage system are invited.

Livelihood

Wikipedia defines a person’s livelihood as the means of securing the necessities of life. India is the second most populous country in the world with around 30% of its population below the poverty line and around 10% unemployed.

The issue of sustainable livelihoods for the poor is a major cause of concern; this, despite decades of effort and investment.

The Microfinance sector in India has grown tremendously over the last 15 years to reach out to millions. Still, the impediments prevail as corroborated by the statistics. Responding to the needs of the microfinance sector in India, suggest ways and means to improve the livelihoods in India.

Problem Statement: In an effort to identify and address the impediments faced by the poor in scaling up their livelihoods from subsistence to substantial levels, Inspire India invites technical and non-technical solutions to increase livelihood opportunities in India that can be achieved via small and medium scale enterprises or otherwise.

Community Work

1. Disaster Management
   Present Situation:
   Signed by the President of India on January 9, 2006, the National Disaster Management Act of 2005 comprising of 79 sections and 11 chapters is capable of effectively managing the disaster and matters related to it. It led to the setting up of National Disaster Management Authority which today is the Apex Body for Disaster Management in India under the Prime Minister of India. But still today, there exists tremendous scope of improvement and catching up to do when we compare ourselves to the developed countries, specifically when talking about emergency responses and urgent medical attention to the affected. We have a long way to go before we can have a strong network in place to respond swiftly to a calamity taking place in any corner of our country.
   Problems:
   
   • Disaster Prediction: The tools to predict the impending disaster well in advance, as well as mechanism for proper intimation to the inhabitants of the affected zone is not in place properly.
   • Disaster Response: Lack of proper infrastructure in place to carry out emergency evacuations as well as search and rescue in a country as populous as India really hits hard when it comes to the relief operations that need to be carried out in areas of challenging topography, or mammoth disasters.
   • Rehabilitation: It is a sad fact that the families are on their own once their property and belongings are destroyed in a disaster. Government relief funds are firstly inadequate, and secondly improperly distributed. No proper scheme of things exist wherein the houses are rebuilt by the government, and a lot of norms are also flouted during the construction of the buildings, rendering them susceptible to high damage during disasters.
   • Information about what exactly needs to be done in case of a disaster is not at all known to the common people, and it leads to immense chaos during such an event.
   
   Problem Statement:
   Teams may focus on technical or non -technical solutions that would increase the effectiveness of a disaster response force and the prediction and awareness of impending disasters to the concerned inhabitants.



2. Senior Citizens
   According to an estimate nearly 40% of senior citizens living with their families are reportedly facing abuse of one kind or the other. Nowadays these people are facing problems like lack of care, emotional support and economic support from the family etc. Children have no time to look after their parents because of their busy schedule and as a consequence of this situation the elders are being neglected. At this age almost all people need some kind of support.
   
   
   • Old age home issues: Many elderly couples in India are forced by their children to leave their homes. With no place to go and all hopes lost, the elderly have to resort to old age homes, which do not guarantee first class treatment.
     Solutions for periodic maintenance of old age homes are invited.
   
   
   • Some least input needed, income generation method: Money becomes an issue at such tender age. In that case, something that helps them independent is mandatory.
     We invite some practical solutions that senior citizens can adopt to earn a living by using their skill sets.
   
   
   • Providing better medical facilities to them: As people grow older, their dependence on external medicines increases. We should ensure that they are made available the required medicine, in adequate amount on right time.
     Solutions to propose a well-planned idea for the same are invited.



3. Women Empowerment and Domestic violence
   
   The recent incident involving molestation of the Guwahati girl in the heart of the city caused a public outrage. Many such incidents violating the modesty of women in broad daylights go unnoticed. Such horrifying incidents have a life lasting impact on the victim and hamper the status of the city/state as a safe place for women. Also, in backward regions, women are discouraged from attending schools, and the work domain of women remains restricted to within the households.
   
   Problem Statement:
   Suggest ideas/ways to facilitate citizens’ involvement with the law enforcement agencies to mitigate such aforementioned incidents like rape, molestation, eve teasing, abuse, petty thefts etc. Provide technical and non-technical solutions which empower the women to fight thesdfg menace and improve the security of women in urban areas. Also provide ideas and solutions to help rehabilitate the victims. Ways to empower women to study and employ themselves outside their households can also be suggested.

Mentorship Stage:

Mentorship is a unique feature of Ideate which makes it different from our other competitions. Mentors are the intellectuals from elite educational institutes and industries, who are there to guide the teams to develop their idea. Their experience shall support the participants to build their solution on the lines of feasibility, legibility and applications. Teams can avail themselves of this opportunity by submitting an abstract of their idea latest by 18th September, 2012. Participants unable to submit their abstracts by 18th September 2012 or those who haven't been shortlisted for mentor allocation can still participate by registering before 5th November 2012 and sending us a detailed project report along with a video of the working model/prototype by 25th November 2012.

Progress Reports

Teams will be required to submit one report on or before 26th October, 2012 to their respective mentors (if applicable) as well as to inspireindia[at]techfest[dot]org. This report should contain updates of their solution, the extent up to which they have designed the solutions and the difficulties being faced. Mentorship may be discontinued in case the teams (with mentors) fail to submit this report. Though, submission is to be done by ALL the participants (irrespective of, if they are allotted mentors and they are working on the idea).

Project Report Format

i. Title and idea proposed

ii. Technical Report
1. Description of concepts, theories or approach involved in the proposed solution.
2. Technical aspect of the proposed solution.
3. Detailed technical specifications and pictorial representations (block diagrams)
4. Description of the flow of operations demonstrating key features and functionality
5. Performance estimate of the solution.
6. Experimentation done to establish the workability of the above
7. A link to the video of the working model/ prototype.

iii. Results
1. Actual findings, significant output of tests and analysis (Must be readable)
2. Include problems encountered, believability of results, accuracy estimates
3. Pros and Cons of your solution
4. Utility of results

iv. Application
1. Your idea as a solution to the problem
2. Additional applications
3. Benefits to the users

v. Any other specific details

Project Report submission

The project report should be mailed to inspireindia[at]techfest[dot]org with the subject "Ideate: Inspire India: Project Report: Team Id" (For ex. Ideate: Inspire India: Project Report: II1243) before 23:59 hrs on 25th November, 2012. Do not forget to mention your Team Id in the subject while sending it. Teams must follow the following details for the submission: 1. The project report must be submitted in pdf format only 2. Format for the report must be the same as above 3. Font: Verdana 4. Size: 11 5. Spacing between two lines: 0.6 inches 6. Spacing between two paragraphs: 1 inch 7. Bottom margin: 1 inch
The panel of judges will analyse the report and will give them a detailed feedback on modifications to the proposed solutions to achieve better results. The details of the short listed participants along with feedback from the judges would be communicated to them by 5th December, 2012. Please note that the open entries can also submit their reports for final evaluation.

Final Presentation

After declaration of the finalists, participants are required to refine and improve upon theie solution. At the time of final presentation:
1. The final report submitted by the teams will be given to judges for reference.
2. Teams will give a presentation covering technical and financial aspects of the solution; for which they must make a PowerPoint presentation.
3. A video that summarizes there idea.

General Rules

1. The competition is open to all (students, research scholars and professionals belonging to any age group). All projects being displayed will have a fair chance of receiving further development opportunities offered by funding organizations and venture capitalists.
2. The team may comprise of foreigners. However, the team must cater to a problem existing in India and the social enterprise must be functional in India.
3. Every team has to register online on our website for the competition. A registration number will be allocated to the team on registration which shall be used for future reference.
4. A team can participate at any point of time before 5th November, 2012. However, to get the advantage of a mentor, the team must register and send an abstract before 18th September, 2012.
5. Decision of the judges shall be treated as final and binding on all.
6. Note that at any point of time the latest information will be that which is on the website. However, registered participants will be informed through mail about any changes on the website.

Judging

1. Significance of the social issue being addressed (The issues should not be the ones that are already being addressed on a large scale successfully)
2. Uniqueness of the solution (The solution must not be trivial or a mere reproduction of already existing solutions. A team may, however, choose to modify an idea that has been successful in solving the problem else-where so as to cater to that needs of its target crowd. However, in that case, this must be clearly mentioned in the abstract)
3. Acceptability of the solution in the target crowd/target area (This will be judged from the proof of relevance of the solution)
4. Social Impact (Widespread and tangible social impact. Scale should be large in terms of the number of people affected or in terms of the quantity of effect)
5. Clarity on the approach to be followed by the team

International Participants

All international participants will have to register before 5th November 2012, and will have to submit the videos of their prototypes/working model along with a complete project report before 25th November 2012. The shortlisted international team details will be put up on the website by 5th December, 2011.

Certificate Policy

Those teams who give a final presentation during Techfest 2012 will be awarded a Certificate of Participation. The top entries from this event will be provided with a Certificate of Excellence.

Team Specifications

The participating entries must be in a team of a maximum of 4[four] people. If the participating team feels that their idea requires more participants in their team, they can forward their request, with suitable reasons, to inspireindia[at]techfest[dot]org with the subject "Ideate: InspireIndia team number increase".

Mentorship	1st October, 2012	Mentors will be allotted to the shortlisted participants on 1st October. Participants will have to submit a progress report of their project before 26th October.
Registration Deadline for open entries	5th November, 2012	Last date for registration of open entries as well as international participants. However, the final report along with the video of prototype (if any) can be submitted till 25th November, 2012.
Project Report and video of Prototype/working model	25th November, 2012	Final project report explaining all the details of the project will have to be submitted along with a video (if relevant) before 25th November, 2012. Finalists will be selected on the basis of this report.
Final Presentation and video of Prototype/ Working Model submission	12th December, 2012	Shortlisted participants have to submit the final video and presentation to be displayed during the festival before 12th December,2012.
Presentation Stage	3rd-5th January, 2013	Final presentation along with a demonstration of the working model/ prototype.

IP 1024	IP 1041	IP 1055	IP 1078
IP 1088	IP 1089	IP 1094	IP 1121
IP 1123	IP 1192	IP 1219	IP 1230
IP 1231	IP 1241	IP 1242	IP 1245
IP 1250

These are the teams selected for the final to be held at Techfest during 3rd-5th January, 2013. Specific dates of the event including timings will be mailed to the paticipants later.



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