Transcriber: Katherine Palmer Reviewer: Maria Pericleous
You just woke up, stepped into the shower, letting the water flow gently wake you up
and make you active for the rest of the day.
Alas, your spa-like experience has a cost associated.
You just wasted 95 litres of pure drinking water straight down the drain.
Yes, with a shower of about 10 minutes,
one person consumes about 100,000 glasses of water every year.
Yes, that is huge, isn’t it?
And there is a famous quote by Jacques Cousteau
that says that water, in the form of liquid,
is very rare.
It’s extremely rare in the universe.
And away from Earth, it is in the form of gas.
So, moisture is the blessed treasure.
So, if you don’t want to commit suicide
and you want to be blessed in future as well, start to preserve it.
Hello, everyone. I am Richa, Mrs. Asia Universe 2020,
an author, founder of Chitrakari and robotic enthusiast
who represented my college
at NASA Kennedy Space Center, Florida, 2013.
I am an engineer by qualification and a product manager by profession.
I am here today to give a talk on the topic Cleaning Water Bodies.
It's a very ordinary topic, right?
But I'm going to talk about cleaning water bodies through robots.
So, there are tons of plastic waste
that are being thrown into rivers almost every day.
Different kinds of waste, such as industrial waste, sewage and whatnot,
are being dumped into our rivers every single day.
It needs to be taken out and then treated with the help of river cleaning machinery,
which is not only cost-intensive, but also requires a lot of space.
So, the idea here is to develop robots.
Autonomous robots that can treat the water surfaces
or the water bodies.
Using the students’ analytical brain,
and the cutting-edge technology that we have,
we can create those cost-efficient robots
that even local government bodies can start to use,
to ramp up their cleanliness drive at a large scale.
But you might be thinking: Why am I talking today? Why me?
Being an engineer myself, who had participated in
NASA's Lunar Vortex Mining Competition 2013,
where the task was to design a robot,
a lunar excavator that would dig the surface of the soil,
and in the soil that’s collected, we had to calculate the moisture content.
So, having developed a robot myself,
and then talking about how robots will enable the water cleanliness,
will make sense to you, right?
And at the same time, being an electronics engineer,
and then talking about sensors would be more relatable to you, isn't it?
So, let’s begin.
4th October 2019.
It is estimated that 70% of India’s surface water is unfit for drinking.
Every day around 40 million litres of wastewater is dumped into our rivers.
This is huge, right?
As India grows and urbanises, its water is getting toxic,
crores and crores of rupees are being invested
in the massive cleaning of our rivers, like Ganga and Yamuna.
But still, some experts feel that
instead of the mammoth sewage treatment plants that we have,
which are cost-intensive, difficult to sustain,
we can have some indigenous measures that can have the local wisdom
and that might be a more efficient way.
Either way, India needs to ramp up its cleanliness drive
with war-like precision.
But the first step is to understand the extent of the problem.
These days, there are different varieties of robots
being created all around the world,
depending upon how large the problem is, and depending upon
the amount of cleanliness that is required there.
So, starting off with India in 2013,
a robot was developed called Ro-boat.
It was a complete, autonomous robot with minimal human intervention.
It was used to detect chemical pollution in the river water bodies
through GPS, sensors and the onboard cameras.
It was used to suck the polluted water, filter it, treat it
and then release the fresh water back into it.
It had a panoramic zoom camera and anti-fog lights,
which allowed it to navigate freely, 24-7, in all weather conditions.
It also had an array of solar panels,
which helped it to navigate easily without using much energy.
This was first kind of robot.
Similarly, 15th August 2018, Students Like You,
a small venture with a great promise,
was shown by 12 engineering students from Kerala, where they developed
Fenboat robotic technology.
Fenboat robotic technology
is capable of finding 60 samples of pollutant in a river
in less than one minute.
In less than one minute, 60 samples of pollutants.
Not only calculating the number of pollutants in the river,
it is also used to detect the source of that pollutant.
So, there are many innovations and different kinds of robots
that are being made all across the world.
Scientists are on it, and the results shown by them are phenomenal.
But despite that, we are facing a climate crisis.
Despite that, we are facing a water crisis.
But I do believe that there is hope.
There is hope because in India,
around 40% of our population is 24 years or younger.
So, we are a young country.
We have innovation,
we have technology, we have means.
What we need is collaboration and mass effort,
and we can do that, right?
We, the students, can contribute in this fight.
How can you contribute in this fight?
I’ll tell you, there are five ways.
First, collect data.
So, the one thing that a person can trust after God is data.
Start to collect data about how grim the river situation in India is.
The consequences of river contamination, start to collect data about it.
The essence is, when you start to work on any problem,
you must need to realise how huge is the problem.
Trust me, this time it is really huge.
Second, define the solution.
As I already mentioned, there are various kinds of robots,
like robots that can treat water, robots that clean the surface of the water,
robots that can determine the pollutants in the river.
So, you need to define your solution.
Which kind of robot do you want to work upon?
So first, you need to define the solution that you will be working on.
Third, and the very most important: learn programming and robotics.
Automation is the future.
Let me tell this word again: automation is the future.
Autonomous robots that are being created
and that do not require human intervention
are very popular today.
This is because the world and India
is going through a revolution right now,
and that revolution is artificial intelligence
and machine learning.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning can transform the abilities
and the capabilities of the robot to take over the tasks
that were once carried out by humans.
So that’s huge, right?
Fourth, increase the efficiency.
As I said, the robots are already there.
Once you have defined your solutions and have collected the data,
and your robot is ready for development,
you need to ensure how compact the robot can be made,
how much water it can clean every day.
Because if 70% of India’s water is unfit for drinking,
how much water can it clean up every day, to reach that level?
Because we need to ramp up our cleanliness drive as soon as possible.
Fifth, reduce the cost.
Cost and finances are very important in everybody’s life.
So are they here also.
So, you need to ensure that you build cost-efficient robots
so that local government bodies, municipal corporations and NGOs
can start using them at a very large scale
because once they start using them at a very large scale,
only then will they be able to reach to the future that we want, right?
Also this reduction in cost will increase demand to a large extent.
And when the demand will be high,
the drive will automatically increase exponentially.
Having said that, the robots are the future of the clean-up effort.
As I mentioned by different examples, and the definitions that I gave you,
you can very well realise
that robotics is going to be the future of the cleanliness drive
and the cleanliness effort all across the world.
Scientists are already in that race.
Students also can contribute into it.
So, the idea is to develop cost-efficient, energy-efficient,
good-capacity robots,
that local government bodies can start to use,
at an extensive and large level,
so that we can create the India that we want.
We need to work and act on it now, because remember:
when all trees are cut, when all animals are hunted,
when all waters are polluted
and when all air is unsafe to breathe,
then will you discover that you can’t eat money.
So act, start acting on it now,
because every drop you drop counts.
Thank you so much, thank you, everyone.