Indian students win Microsoft award for anti-fake medicine app
Three students from the RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru, have won a special award from Microsoft, along with $15,000 in prize money, for designing an app, "Drugsafe", that can identify fake medicines. The trio was one of the three teams representing India at the 2018 Microsoft Imagine Cup finals, held at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond. Here's more on their invention.
What is the Microsoft Imagine Cup?
For those unaware, the Microsoft Imagine Cup is a student technology competition aimed at solving global problems through technology. The 2018 edition was the 16th version of the competition, and saw 49 teams from 33 countries compete in the finals at Redmond.
Driven by personal experiences, the trio created Drugsafe
Irked by their friend's inability to recover from illness despite taking prescription drugs, Chidroop I, Pratik Mohapatra and Srihari HS from the RV College of Engineering decided to tackle the issue of fake medicines. Drugsafe takes a photo of a medicine and uses complex technologies to identify minute details in packaging and design, and compares them to original patents and trademarks for analysis.
The menace of fake medication in India
According to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, 20% of all drugs sold in India are fake. This problem is particularly pronounced in common medication, such as those prescribed for colds and headaches - these medicines are generally of low-quality or entirely fraudulent.
Details of how Drugsafe identifies fake medicine
Drugsafe, essentially, has a four-level verification system wherein the app conducts a batch check, location check, blueprint comparison, and authenticity determination. The app uses technology like Optical Character Recognition (OCR), machine learning, artificial intelligence and blockchain, along with the Azure Cosmos database for validating medication. Instead of conclusively designating a medicine as fake, Drugsafe, based on identified discrepancies, offers probability scores of fakeness.
Drugsafe can reportedly identify epidemic outbreaks and inform its community
In addition to its fake medicine identification capabilities, Drugsafe also has a "Report" feature that allows users to report fake medicines to make the entire Drugsafe online community aware. Drugsafe's "Community" feature serves other purposes too - the app's machine learning and AI features aid in spotting potential epidemic outbreaks in particular regions, and provides the requisite information, along with maps, to users.
Drugsafe didn't make it to top three, but still won
Although Drugsafe's innovative approach to the menace of counterfeit medicines endeared it to the judges of the 2018 Microsoft Innovation Cup, the Bengaluru trio didn't win the competition. The top three prizes were taken by teams from Canada, Greece and Japan, respectively. However, Drugsafe won a prize under the special 'Big Data' category for its use of the Azure Cosmos database.
Drugsafe is designed to cater to all classes of users
In addition to all the aforementioned features, Drugsafe was also designed to be accessible to all classes of people regardless of age or technical ability, and hence comes with a user-friendly, simple UI. Armed with the prize money from Microsoft, the trio is now determined to improve the app, address challenges, and make it more relevant for the masses before its commercial launch.
