Writer
This future world changer explains the tech behind his vision
Since starting working with Footsteps, a social enterprise in Bangladesh, at the age of 16, I’ve heavily advocated many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, including number six – clean water and sanitation. Project Trishna – a venture of Footsteps which means “Thirst” in Bengali – is now generating 3-6 million litres of water every year for almost 10,000 individuals in both urban and rural areas of Bangladesh. Over 75 portable filters and counting have been set up throughout the nation in a bid to create clean accessible water for people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Working with Footsteps laid down the foundational experience to launch a Bangladesh-based, AI startup: Hydroquo+. The company will address water scarcity by regulating water flows, identifying leaks in pipes for tracking lost water, detecting anomalies, forecasting demand and predicting events.
Exploring and collecting volumes of data integrated with several variables extracted from contaminated water bodies and feeding that to a machine learning algorithm would result in a process that would help differentiate pure and impure water. The next stage would involve using computer vision systems to track live biological particles by taking into account various factors like their metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, etc. This would be crucial for identifying waterborne diseases. The last phase is to to create an Internet of Things (IOT) device (such as a flow sensor integrated with type-C UV LED). The flow sensor will use machine vision and biased classifiers to process streams of data to detect and then eradicate bacteria in-real time, in turn making free flowing water clean and drinkable for large scale use.
By 2030, an estimated 4 billion people will be suffering from due to lack of clean water. I’m just doing my bit to create a blueprint for the future water industries. It is no easy task pursuing an undergraduate degree and simultaneously working on Hydroquo, however both go hand in hand. Not to mention, having a sense of humour, good time management, grit, and most importantly a solid work ethic takes you a long way.
