For a beautiful mind a commonplace encounter can result in a great invention.

The sight of a visually challenged man cane-tapping his way in a local train prompted young Arvindakshan Ravichandran to examine how much easier navigation would be for the visually challenged if wheels were attached to white canes. Seven months later, Ravichandran developed and perfected the ‘I-Cane’ (intelligent cane) for the visually impaired. The compact, foldable, I-Cane, made of polycar-bonate material has an embedded chip, sensor and guidance motor for steering the wheels attached to it.

“The visually challenged are necessarily safety conscious but encounter innumerable obstacles on our roads. The I-Cane ensures complete safety by warning them about pits, bumps, obstacles and even overhanging wires or branches. It emits differing tonal alerts to identify obstacles and steers the wheels away from such objects,” says Ravi-chandran, a third-year computer science student at Chennai’s Sri Sai Ram Engineering College.

The I-Cane was formally unveiled at the Robomaxx 2004 in Grants Pass, Oregon, USA on October 14, followed by a display at the Robothon held by the Seattle Robotics Society on October 16 and finally the Robonexus, a major three-day event staged in California on October 21-23 last year.

“It was an educative experience to interact with deans and faculty from universities like MIT, Harvard and Carnegie Mellon at the Robonexus in particular which was attended by nearly 12,000 people. I was the youngest inventor there and the only one to present an applicative robot. I got to see some great humanoid robots at the conventions and the experience was very stimulating,” says Ravichandran whose passion for robotics began as a student at the Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan School, Chennai.

Inevitably a lot of persistence and hard work was invested in the I-Cane. The prototype was jointly developed with classmate R.S. Bharath before an improved second version was accepted for display in the American conventions. “I owe a large debt of gratitude to my college management which sponsored my travel to the US, my department head Prof. Saravanan and three other professors at IIT–Madras who helped me improve the prototype. Modern inventions require extensive collaboration and research, therefore some credit is also due to Essem Control & Systems, Chennai which helped me fabricate different parts of the cane,” he says.

On Ravichandran’s agenda are plans to commercialise the I-Cane after perfecting the technology. This will be coterminous with higher studies and research in robotics.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)

Aruna Kesavan 

Thiruvananthapuram-based Aruna Kesavan (18) has been appointed the successor of Wimbledon doubles champion Sania Mirza as the country’s brand ambassador for its ‘Women Empowerment’ and ‘Save the Girl Child’ campaigns by the Union ministry of health and family welfare. A science student, she averaged 97.4 percent in the class XII school leaving exam of the Delhi-based Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to emerge as the national topper in this examination written by 393,000 students last year, to merit this appointment. As brand ambassador she will promote messages, themes, concepts and work towards strengthening the social status of underprivileged women. For this she will be paid Rs.5 lakh at the end of a one-year tenure.

“I was utterly surprised when I was chosen brand ambassador for 2005. I’m grateful for the honour to support this very important cause. I’ve realised how real these issues are,” says Kesavan an alumna of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Kozhikode, who’s all packed for the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani.

By any yardstick Kesavan’s class XII board exam results are impressive enough to have even surprised her. She scored a perfect 100 in mathematics, 96 in English and 97 each in physics, chemistry and biology. “The only subject in which I resorted to private tuition was mathematics which perhaps explains my perfect score in the subject,” she says.

As brand ambassador for women’s empowerment, Kesavan is already into the business. She endorsed an advert-isement on the occasion of World Population Day (July 11) to support the cause of girl children. The theme: ‘Girl or boy, small family is joy’. She has taken to her new appointment with gusto because she is more than convinced that the condition of the girl child in India is pathetic. “Though I’ve been fortunate to get opportunities in life, there are millions of talented girl children in our country who are denied elementary enablement and opportunity because of gender injustice. This deprives the country of their services. Things may be changing, but very slowly. I think education is the key to any improvement in the status of girl children. Parents will have to believe that education is important and girls are entitled to it as much as boys,” she says fervently.

With her sights set upon qualifying as an astrophysicist, she has taken the first step by choosing to study physics at BITS, Pilani after which she plans to continue with higher studies.

T.K. Devasia (Thiruvananthapuram)