Chakravyuh by Thinkerbell Labs

Over 90% of COVID-19 patients have reported having a fever suggesting a strong correlation between fever and the prevalence of COVID-19. With workplaces and public areas of congregation opening slowly, temperature scanning will not only help identify potential COVID-19 patients but will also play an important role in the identification of potential clusters to contain the disease. 

Thinkerbell Labs’ AI-driven solution for COVID-19 cluster identification - Chakravyuh analyzes scanned real-time temperature data fed into a centralized database to generate predictive region-specific insights that could result in proactive decision making. Chakravyuh analyses logged temperature data to provide real-time insights to enable decision-makers to predict potential COVID-19 clusters. The temperature data can be fed automatically using Chakavyuh’s low-cost IR temperature scanner that can be attached to any smartphone or fed manually using the Chakravyuh application.

As our country enters the community spread phase of the pandemic, containment efforts are driven by the number of admitted patients and contact tracing. As a result of being reactive decisions, these efforts might be slow and could overload the healthcare system. The lack of proactive decision-making is due to a scarcity of scanning equipment and widespread screening/scanning. Such a system could provide predictive region specific insights in real-time to decision makers thus allowing for quicker decisions.

As over 90% of Covid patients have fever, and there is a huge correlation between fever data and prevalence of Covid, citizen temperature data would be an invaluable metric in predicting clusters of community transmission. Our idea is to use real-time citizen temperature data to generate predictive region-specific insights that could result in proactive decision making. This is achieved by:

• A low-cost connected IR thermometer that attaches to any smartphone and syncs the collected temperature data on to a visualization dashboard in real-time.

• Equipping healthcare workers, grocery store staff, security teams, essential delivery executives, workplaces, etc. with a smartphone-based thermometer would help us create temperature scanning hubs at points of common congregation in the city. These hubs will collect temperature data of their customers/patients/employees regularly as part of their everyday job.

• Thinkerbell Labs’ AI driven solution for COVID-19 cluster identification, Chakravyuh, utilizes real-time temperature data to generate predictive region-specific insights that could result in proactive decision making.

With Chakravyuh's low cost IR thermometer authorities can achieve widespread screening/scanning creating a large scale citizen body temperature data. This citizen health databank will allow the Chakravyuh Real-Time Dashboard to provide predictive region specific insights in real-time for authorities to make proactive decisions in curtailing the spread of the virus.

A monitoring dashboard will represent this real-time data in geographic clusters and highlight clusters of community transmission based on temperature patterns.This will allow decision-makers in the government to take quick, preemptive measures from their respective COVID-19 War Rooms.

Customer Segment:

• B2G: Administrative bodies at all levels fighting the pandemic - District Administrations, Departments of Health, Municipal Corporations etc.; As our country enters the community spread phase of the pandemic, Current containment efforts are reactive decisions that are slow and are burdening the healthcare system.
• B2B : Businesses delivering & producing essential services (E-Commerce, On-demand delivery, Grocery shops, Manufacturing Units).

The AI-driven solution for COVID-19 cluster identification- Chakravyuh, fits description of innovations MIT Solve is seeking for i.e., innovations that can slow or track the spread of an emerging outbreak. Chakravyuh analyzes scanned real-time temperature data fed into a centralized database to generate predictive region specific insights that could help in proactive decision making. Temperature can be fed by Chakravyuh's low cost IR temperature scanner or manually. Citizen temperature data would be an invaluable metric in predicting clusters of community transmission. 

• Chakravyuh is an AI-Driven real-time monitoring system that is low cost and connected.

• Chakravyuh’s low cost IR temperature scanner can be attached to any smart phone.

• Can be used in vernacular languages and no prior training is required.

• Uses ML to predict clusters of community transmission to avoid the spread of infection and overloading healthcare systems. 

• Acts as a quick and easy data collection mechanism for temperature data and other relevant information that gives instant visibility to the decision makers as compared to the local one time temperature screening. 

• Automatic alerts will be sent from the Chakravyuh dashboard in case of workplace non-compliance to continuous mandatory temperature screening.

The solution marries modern hardware and software technologies in order to battle the COVID19 pandemic. 

• The hardware uses an Infra Red Thermometer sensor coupled with a microprocessor to create an ergonomic smartphone attachment that can convert any Smartphone into a reliable contact-less Smart thermometer that is capable of transmitting recorded information to the cloud in real-time using a Smartphone Application (Android and iOS)

• The software allows administrative bodies and decision-makers to view the collected data on map-based dashboards to take region-wise measures. This is achieved using modern web technologies such as Google Map APIs, custom shape-files, MERN etc. 

• The dashboard not only provides a real-time view of all the data being collected at the grassroots but also generates predictive insights based on citizen temperature trends for timely measures to be put in place. This is achieved using predictive ML algorithms such as regression and Neural networks being applied to Big Data collected over time across multiple geographies.

Goals for Chakravyuh:

• Deploy the solution in more than 10 geographies and have 10,000 scanning points.

• Cover/Scan ~10 million citizens. 
  
  We are optimistic that the COVID19 pandemic would have ended (immunity/vaccination) within the next 5 years so the goal would be to have this in the Pandemic response team’s arsenal to fight outbreaks of similar nature in the future

Barriers Currently Exisitng:

• Sumptuous data collection to ensure accurate predictive models.

• Mass manufacturing the hardware at the required scale. 

• Widespread deployments

• Get this in the hands of decision-makers and administrative bodies across the country to ensure quick scaling.

• Use experience and supply chain from our flagship hardware product that is in the market

Team Members- 11

• The Engineering team has the technical expertise and experience creating customized innovative Electronic devices at low costs with simple to use embedded software. 
• The Supply Chain team is experienced in bringing products to market at high quality in short time.

We plan to use our existing government & business networks to conduct a direct outreach to these customer segments. The hardware (connected IR thermometers) will be deployed at central points of congregation throughout the city and at businesses manufacturing & delivering essential services. The software access (monitoring dashboard) will be provided to the decision maker responsible, for example - district collector and team in the case of district administrations and business owner and team in the case of businesses. We also plan to engage distributors and resellers to reach out to businesses beyond our immediate networks and scale up.

One-time (Hardware & Software Setup):

Hardware Cost- USD 65.52 (INR 5000/-) per IR Thermometer
Software Setup - USD 3931.36 (INR 3,00,000/-) with training via video call.

From our initial outreach of the concept, we have started receiving inquiries from districts, businesses as well as resellers. Given these inquiries and initial demand, we expect to make USD 17035.89 (INR 13,00,000/-) by selling 200 IR thermometers and 1 dashboard. Over the course of the next few months as community transmission increases and the need for proactive decision making increases, we project USD 102215.32(INR 78,00,000/-) of revenue by selling 1200 IR thermometers and 6 dashboards.

We hope to work with Solve to receive the required funding and guidance to overcome our barriers of Data collection, Mass Manufacture and Deployments. 

As ours is an AI and ML driven solution to fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic, that fits the innovations that Solve is seeking for, we hope to work with Solve and MIT networks. 

The grant would be used to build high fidelity prototypes, procure components, manufacture and deploy the first 1000 units. We would also use it to design and develop a mould (tool) for mass manufacturing which would enable us to build a production capacity of 1000 units per day and manufacture upto 10,000 units.