 Welcome to this special series with some special people in which we turn our spotlight on the remarkable winners of Smart India Hackathon 2023. A prestigious competition that showcases the genius of young minds in solving real-world challenges through technology. In this program, we will hear from the winners themselves, learning about the challenges they faced, the inspiration behind the solution, and the impact they hope to achieve. First in the series is Sam Varghese and his team. So let's hear it from the man himself and the people associated with him. Hi Sam, how are you doing? Hello sir, I am fine. So good to have you guys on this show, the first episode for this particular series and good to see you those you know bright faces which are the faces of winners. So many congratulations to begin with and thank you so much sir. I would request you to you know kind of tell us something about you and your team so that you know we get to know you better before we start you know taking more of the information from you. Sure. Sir, my name is Sam Varghese and our team is from NMIS Indore. So we are from Madhavadev state and the problem statement where we worked on is SIS1515. I am in MBA tech branch pursuing computer engineering and I'm also an intern at Maharashtra Police cyber-centered partners. Now I would like to request Suhani to introduce herself. Hello, I am Suhani Kundaywal. I am in second year and pursuing B Tech in computer engineering. Hello sir, my name is Arivijay and I've also been a part of previous department which was Kavachaketan in which the team was again made by Sam Varghese and I'm currently pursuing B Tech from NMIS. I'm in second year. So good to know you guys I mean you have been a pro at this even Kavach was your playground once wonderful to hear that. So Sam first of all let me let me know a bit about your team how did you get together like were you studying together or it was a common interest or what brought you together as a team to you know participate in the act? Yeah so my name we are from the state university and we are very passionate about hardware and software. So yeah like I know Flutter many of them have their expertise in AI in application development and a lot of these fields. So yeah we are very passionate about solving the problems and that is why we started a part in Smart India Action we formed a group together that's how. So everyone had their expertise individually and we come together and some is for the adhesion part some is the some is expert and back end some in front end and that is how we came together and we okay so the problem that you chose was real-time parking management system. So how critical this issue is according to you and why does it really need a solution can we live without it can we do without it or no? Many a times people park on street right now whenever they park on street it leads to street congestion now because of this it leads to longer waiting times people have to wait for a long time in order to reach their destination. Now this is a very big issue for smart city developments and for cities like Mumbai, Madhupadesh etc. Now this is the problem where we actually worked on. Parking space cannot be increased we have to utilize the ones which is available to us right now and that is what we have done we have utilized available parking space to its fullest using a combination of hardware as well as software. So we are on bridge in Indore. So according to Indore there was a recent publication in the Times of Indian Titanic basket called the ethical parking lot. The uploader status states that more than 2 lakh people have been fined for ethical parking. This tells us how big of a issue this already is and because of illegal parking traffic congestion takes place and air noise pollution takes place and as they are limited parking spots so to solve this problem we have to implement a smart solution so that we can optimize these parking spaces and then provide reservation of these parking spaces with a hassle-free experience. So there is going to be a positive of parking space always in fact this positive will you know keep increasing by that passage of time. So how does one solve this puzzle so that will be very interesting to know and understand from you how did you crack this particular puzzle how were you able to you know create this kind of a management system. Yes sir so first and foremost people park many a times illegally right so what we have done is we are utilizing the existing ccd cameras of government and these cameras send their footage to our AIMN model now through AIMN model we'll be having a constant supervision on the parking space right so whenever somebody parks illegally then suddenly this application will send alert to the officials that okay this is this is the particular car it has parked illegally now because of this it is leading to congestion long waiting times and all of these things right. Secondly we are asking the users to reserve their parking spot even before they come okay so because of this users would be able to reserve the parking spot prior to prior to coming there suppose if I want to park my space at 4 to 5 p.m okay then I'll exactly come to know what is the congestion at that particular time how many people have already reserved their parking spot okay now if this parking spot is not available then our application will tell the user okay so don't come at 4 to 5 because the parking spots are already filled you do one thing you come from 5 to 6 p.m at that time parking spaces would be vacant so what are we doing here actually we are telling the users to come at a specific we are actually dividing the crowd based on time as well as based on location okay so this is how we are utilizing the existing parking spaces so instead of simply creating a creating a crowd there we are actually telling the users okay come from this time to this time you'll find a parking space there so you're basically reducing the congestion on the streets so you're basically sending out directives to the users or potential users so to be able to use send out these directives what is the kind of data that you're collecting and how are you collecting that what are your sources for you know collection of all those data's which enable you to you know send out these directives or whatever suggestions you may say okay so the data that we are collecting first and foremost it is from the CCDV footage itself so we will be accessing the CCDV cameras of government we are utilizing only the existing infrastructure we are not introducing something else which leads to a lot of burden a lot of financial investment or something we are utilizing the existing systems okay so what this camera will do is it will send its CCDV footage to our AIML model now the AIML model will constantly see the available parking space it will check whether the parking space is congested or not whether there is an available parking space or not so what it will do it will send the send the time as well as the congestion data to our cloud cloud database so this is how it's actually done so what exactly happens when that CCDV footage data goes to your you know AI based backend I would say yeah so what happens is our CCDV footage the footage we're getting from the the real-time footage we are getting so with the help of our AIML model we are able to keep the track of the number of vehicles in the particular area now to solve this problem of where to allot the parking as in because we have a street for example so maybe 70% of that particular street let's say illegal and the remaining 30% is illegal so how exactly does a user know or the admin knows he where to park exactly so our application allows the parking space to divide the space into groups and so each group has the track of the number of vehicles so what will happen actually is the admin will mark the legal parking space right because all because the whole street is not obviously a legal parking space so the admin will actually mark the legal parking space now our AIML model will supervise that parking space it will see if that space has been completely filled or not if suppose a space had a capacity of five vehicles but only three have come then suddenly our AIML model will alert the officials okay see two more vehicles can come here so the user can park here so that is how we are actually utilizing the existing parking space Sam let's can we really have some kind of a demonstration which you know you know makes us see exactly what's happening instead of you know try to understand through words can we see it through visuals or through you know actual kind of a prototype which you might have developed yes sir we have developed a mobile application now this application will also be also be compatible for android ios windows as well as lines so let's share that screen first this is the application which we have created for our problem statement so here firstly we are entering the username then we are entering the password after that we need to register our vehicle number so let's take a random vehicle number for now yes and after that we are submitting it so this is a page where we can reserve a spot for our vehicle so firstly we need to enter the timing from which duration we need to reserve a spot so it is automatically taking a time of one hour which is 230 to 232 we can also change it if you want to extend the time after that we need to select the destination so here right now i am selecting nmimus indoor only after that we need to select the vehicle type whether it is a car or a motorcycle so after that we'll submit this and here we have some groups on which we can reserve a spot so it also shows how much spot is occupied and how much spot is not occupied so we'll enter here in and we'll book a spot here so firstly it will give us the amount which we need to pay so it is showing here 20 rupees which we have set it by default and we can change it later on and we have also applied dynamic pricing here so we can change it after that it is showing that our spot is successfully reserved and the cost we need to pay is 49 rupees okay so as you can see why she was reserving her spot she was actually able to say how much of the particular parking spot is available and how much is not available so even without going to the particular parking space physically they can't come to know that okay 60% of the spot is already occupied or 100% of it is occupied so let me change up my time duration so that the particular street does not get overconsisted so this is how we are managing the traffic we are managing the existing parking spaces so i think it is not only about managing traffic and parking spaces another thing that comes to mind is you know from an era of having you know advanced looking for cinemas we are now moving to another of here we can have advanced picking up parking slots right so that is an additional thing that you're offering to the potential customers yes this is an additional thing that we are offering moreover we have also set a dynamic pricing so by using this application the officials can earn money the shopkeepers can earn money they can charge for the parking space that they are providing so this becomes an additional source of revenue for them and everything is working on a real time basis so everything gets registered in the app as well at the same time okay now coming to the next important question in terms of competition where do you stand are there any similar platforms available in and around your area or me in this country or in the world what is this comparable with yes sir so there are a few a few competitions like recently we saw news about ujjain so in ujjjain they are implementing a similar parking space management system but majority of the parking space management systems they do not use computer vision so they only use their application moreover they are also more oriented towards dedicated parking space not the street parking space for smart city development streets parking and street parking space is what's more important not the dedicated one like like the parking space that is available in malls or in colleges they are not an issue for us for the ministry the main issue is whenever people park on street or on the road so that is our main issue and we have we have sold it in a better way by integrating computer vision hardware software and whatnot and the usp of our application is that there is very less human intervention as in we don't need many people for our program to work as we see that a lot of parking spaces we have to do three people who are working there who are able who are helping the people to park their spaces some officers who are there to find if some or doing miracles for example so our application requires a very very less human intervention and it can give results very efficiently it also has an embedded map as you can see so it will guide the user to the exact parking spot so we've spoken about the competition and you say that there is competition right now but you are a little ahead of them because of certain features and certain functions so but tell me one thing what stops them to upgrade themselves and bring themselves to your level and be a realistic competition for you so is that something which is possible which might happen in the future and if that happens how do you plan to you know fight that okay that is actually a very good question so right now we are using very advanced AI in models okay so all more over we are using the existing infrastructure our competitor are not using the existing infrastructure it requires a lot of investment to set them up right so that is how we are ahead of them because we are actually using the existing infrastructure not bringing something new to the table so it's very affordable for everybody and moreover it also offers a source of revenue that is very important for all the shopkeepers means the shopkeepers won't directly use our application if we force them to right they will use our application if they also get some benefit from it so providing them an additional source of revenue providing them suppose even half a lack of money it will motivate them a lot to set this set of this technology what are the future plans what where do you take this from this particular step what is the next step for this yes sir so we are planning to create a startup so that we can extend this project and make it see the light of the day moreover we are also in touch with the mayor's office with the mayor of indoor we are also in touch with his office and he has told we will try to implement it in a few regions of indoor and we'll start to scale it up so that this application will be used for the entire city and have you figured out the funding part of it will it be bootstrapping or you're looking at some kind of a seed capital or you know something to that nature so our college NMMS we have some funders and investors who found our idea very good and they are the ones who are going to link us with the mayor's and they have assured us that funding won't be a very big problem and also a very additional benefit is that we don't require a very large amount of we can basically make our application work very efficiently in very less amount of money so funding won't be a very big problem and it would be solved moreover we have already been rewarded with a 1 lakh cash price we'll be using it for our application for our application of course that prize money is going to come handy definitely I can I can understand that yes sir it's well deserved one and now Sam and team talking about the business plans and you know taking this idea forward so tell me in kind of bullet points what all do we require at this particular moment to succeed or to take this order to make this a commercial viability okay so first would be the expertise of the people who are working at a very high level and who have basically the technical experience so that our application actually works in the real-time scenario first would be taking that help secondly would be the funding part I guess for the the money and and then we might require access to CCTV footage obviously so yeah that is very crucial thing for us accessing the data, accessing the data that our existing infrastructure is collecting and yeah and last one is that we might need access to a cloud infrastructure a cloud database as well so that our application will run on cloud it will store its data on cloud so that it is accessible for the whole city or the whole state so I presume that you must be working on these things right now yes sir I am right now contact with some people okay so if I talk about any timeline kind of a thing so in how many months or years or whatever timeframe do you think this idea can be turned into reality so it might need us six months at least to start start the phase one of our project so in the phase one of our project we'll be targeting on a small location probably our university parking area or the nearby streets or a square or something we'll start by that the first phase to be testing it in a small case scenario and all the problems which are going or the inconsistencies which are going to come we are going to be solving that so that we are ready to take it on a little big level yes sir so at least six months to figure out the existing technical things that are currently going on in indoor in our state okay and then we'll try to prove it we'll try to launch our phase one we'll try to implement it on our area so guys there it is in the next six months we can expect a very smart real-time parking space management system coming into place so that's the power of ideas that's the power of you know innovation that's the power of smart India hackathon you know bringing up these wonderful my young minds and their ideas and working on those so sam and team thank you so much for joining us today and we wish you all the best and we hope that within six months you actually will be able to start this project and thereafter you will not look back and take this thing to multiple cities across the country and you will be a name which will be well known in this particular space and people will remember you for you know solving this huge problem that our country faces and we wish you all the very best sam and all the team members thank you so much for joining us thank you so much thank you so that was sam and his team making a difference there through smart India hackathon so that is all for now we'll be back with an array of innovation and brilliance as we showcase the smart India hackathon winners who are not just shaping the future but also contributing to building a smarter and more technologically advanced India stay tuned for more episodes filled with creativity and spirit of innovation see you