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IIIT-Allahabad start-up wins $10K at Boeing’s BUILD-2019
The startup dubbed PS-1925 with its farm specific drone has earned its creators-- Pawan Kumar and Shefali Vinod Ramteke-- a cash prize of USD10,000 (over ₹7.11 lakh) to take forward their dreams and improve the technology of UAVs.
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A start-up by two PhD scholars of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad (IIIT-A) has found a place among top six winners of noted Boeing University Innovation Leadership Development Programme (BUILD)-2019 for developing robust, affordable and indigenous drones.
The startup dubbed PS-1925 with its farm specific drone has earned its creators-- Pawan Kumar and Shefali Vinod Ramteke-- a cash prize of USD10,000 (over ₹7.11 lakh) to take forward their dreams and improve the technology of UAVs.
The Boeing University Innovation Leadership Development (BUILD) programme has been launched by the aerospace manufacturer to help innovators convert their ideas into viable business offerings that have the potential to shape the future of Indian aerospace and defence.
Speaking about it Kumar said: “We are ecstatic over the achievement as over 850 ideas were received from 1600 applicants across India for this event. Experts from Boeing, incubator partners and the industry selected the regional finalists. The incubators helped the shortlisted teams hone their ideas and make them market-ready. After rigorous rounds of evaluation process, 26 teams were selected to pitch their ideas to Boeing and its connected ecosystem of investors, incubators and entrepreneurs on Boeing Innovation Day recently.”
Kumar has recently completed his dual degree BTech in Electronics and Communication Engineering and MTech in Bio-medical engineering from IIIT-Allahabad and has now enrolled as a research scholar here.
Hailing from Reotipur village of Patti Bahorik Rai, Ghazipur district of UP, Pawan credits his father Ramesh Ram, who is a subedar in Assam Rifles and his rural background for his idea of UAVs for different tasks including farming.
His partner Shefali Vinod Ramteke has also recently completed her dual degree BTech in Electronics and Communication Engineering and MTech in Bio-medical engineering from IIIT-A and is presently a research scholar at the institute.
Shefali said their company has been working on drones for the past three years at IIIT-A and developed designs for radio-controlled aircrafts and drones for different applications.
“Our farming UAV (Krishi PS-1925) can help a farmer take a better care of his field and crops. It can be used for ‘precision agriculture’ or smart farming. There are seven major domains where it is helpful including soil and field analysis, spraying of pesticides, monitoring of animals, weed identification in farm fields, seed planting and counting mechanism, crop irrigation management and differentiation between healthy and unhealthy crops,” she said.
Shefali added that they have presented their startup idea at major events at Canada, US and Greece also.
