Narad
“We are the difference between awareness and ignorance”
HackOn provided us with an incredible platform to not only allow our product to reach the masses but to also understand our product better ourselves. The HackOn Team along with their sponsors Github, IBM, Devfolio, Fold, Matic, elastic, Gitkraken, etc have allowed us to fully comprehend the potential of teamwork, witness individual ideas, specifically, our idea, Narad by Daran Labs (a team consisting of 4 highschoolers — (Priyanshi Ahuja , Somesh Kar , Ashvin Verma , Angad Singh )
The Problem
In context of the pandemic, one could say that currently the ones who are fortunate enough to be well off in the urban setting are able to access the only weapon available to mankind against the coronavirus: information, awareness, and preparedness. Especially when this can cost human lives, the expansion of information needs to be looked into for the sake of survival, equality, and a collective fight against the pandemic. In the end, all of us are in this together: one human race.
Currently, broadcasting services don’t sufficiently cover different linguistic communities due to their inflexibility, excluding a lot of people. Additionally, they also require literacy and often expensive smartphones to use. Even then, they can still not deliver local and relevant news in a timely manner, leaving those out of modernization who may benefit from it. There is a lack of an effective and accessible communication system at the local level, especially in rural areas. This can be severely detrimental to systems like agro-advisory, and education which need such a decentralized yet accessible source of communication.
Our solution
The Narad Mesh Network
A single transmitter unit is needed to send out an FM wave by modulating CPU cycles, which can then be transmitted via a mesh network of ultra-low-cost transmitters. This network is easy and quick to install and can be set up in a decentralized manner without an official rollout. Additionally, it doesn’t require a smartphone for use, being compatible with virtually any commonly owned feature phone or FM receiver, allowing even the illiterate to make use of it. It can help in spreading information and enabling remote education.
Narad tunes down the CPU clock cycles on a single thread of a Raspberry Pi Single Board Computer to the 87.5–107.5 MHz FM range. It uses a WiFi mesh-based network to communicate between the nodes so only a single node which spans across a region needs a connection to the internet, to retrieve weather data etc or act as a transmitter. The device is extremely cost-effective to make (about $11 per device)
Moreover, only a few devices would be required per region, the people will receive the signals through any regular FM receiver, something that isn’t expensive, doesn’t require a cable/internet connection and is easily accessible, thus reducing overall broadcast cost throughout the country.
The App
We also have a supplementary optional app, with a Local News feature, dispersing information relating to agriculture, the pandemic and beyond. The ‘Go LIVE’ feature interfaces through WiFi with the Narad units to start a local broadcast information locally, from the device. Additionally, it can be used to change the order of transmission for scheduled broadcasts.
The Tracker
One of our members has developed a tracker for COVID-19, which tracks the spread in India, and visualizes it using a cluster-graph implementation. It has 9.8 million active users according to Google Analytics, and has gained prominence in the global community. We have analysed the data to help form our concept. The tracker will allow us to do an effective implementation of our device allowing us to analyse the effects of the virus across multiple regions.
Future Potential
Narad has extensive use after the pandemic has passed us as well. If governments and organisations invest in this product, later on, they can use it to combat other problems such as localised man-made and natural disasters, illiteracy, farmer suicide (by providing agro advisory) along with further supporting other social projects by giving them a platform to broadcast on especially considering that the smartphone penetration for India was 5.3% as of 2019. First-hand experience of the prolonged effects of our product will further instigate more demand in the market. It’d establish a sense of solidarity among citizens of the same locality, by providing a way to voice their opinions and consume news thus reducing conflicts in the long run and better governance at the local and union level.
One species, one world, one fight. Let’s use our ideas to build a bridge between all corners of society and get past this together. All for one, one for all.
