-
The annual "DIY with TI" programme encourages Texas Instruments' staff to innovate and solve real-world problems in their spare time
A project for predicting blood sugar without the painful prick of the needle has won top prize at the India edition off “DIY with TI”, a global programme to showcase the best Do-It-Yourself projects created by Indian engineers of semiconductor leader Texas Instruments (TI). The event is designed to recognize and encourage TI hobbyists who innovate in their spare time using TI devices, and to showcase their creativity with innovations that help solve real-life problems.
Last week in Bangalore, S KeerthiBala, Priyankar Mathuria, Ankur Patel and Aarti Malgaonkar won the Chief Geek award for their DIY project 'Non Invasive Blood Sugar Prediction'. They made use of TI's Digital Light Processor (DLP NIRscan Nano, a compact battery-operated evaluation module (EVM) used for portable near-infrared spectroscopy solutions, mainly in wearable health monitoring applications.
Another team consisting of Abhijit Ray, Tarunvir Singh and Gaurang Kuchchal were recognized as runners-up for their project on ‘FINDO-track your valuables’ a lifesaver that helps forgetful people find their lost items using GPS.
More than 40 engineers got together in teams at TI in India and showcased their passion for creating simple and innovative solutions by showcasing 15 interesting demos across home automation, agriculture, education, personal electronics, renewable energy, healthcare, etc.
This year, the winners were chosen based on the potential of this application for creating future smart cities.. There were other notable projects in the realm of making solar energy harvesting with a smart tracking system, cloud based tracker to measure electrical power consumption in home, a pen that can remember what you scribbled-- no paper required -- and a Drawbot or smart drawing assistant.
Says Santhosh Kumar, President and Managing Director at Texas Instruments India: “We are proud to continue to host the ‘DIY with TI’ in India to encourage TI hobbyists, develop and demonstrate their innovations by collaborating & sharing ideas with other DIY-ers. These innovations are created in their own time. The worldwide programme, works as a catalyst to enhance their problem solving skills in the most engaging manner. This helps us to recognize the talented engineers across all TI offices globally.”
‘DIY with TI’ is a global event held within TI in its U.S., Germany, China and India offices.