Sambalpur: Bodhisattwa Sanghapriya and Om Prakash Das, both students of Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Technology (VSSUT), Burla, have received the innovation challenge award from Biotechnology Industrial Research Assistance Council (Birac) for developing a low-cost breast cancer early screening device.
Bodhisttwa and Om are BTech final-year students at VSSUT and leading the innovation and entrepreneurship cells of the university, respectively.
Union minister of science and technology Harsh Vardhan conferred the award to the students in New Delhi on March 20. The award is a national competition, conducted by the Centre, aimed at encouraging innovations to combat challenges in the community health sector. It is designed to offer financial support to technology innovators and entrepreneurs, who have been working in this direction, in which a promising technology can become handy.
The department of biotechnology had organised the competition seven months ago and received thousands of applications from professors, scientists and students from all over the country. After several rounds of screening, the students duo were declared the winners. The team has received a grant of Rs 15 lakh to take this project to a product stage by the start-up company of Bodhisattwa named Invent Grid. This affordable breast cancer device is a phone-based tool and can detect cancer at a very early stage.
For the first time in the history of Odisha, the students have won such an award at the national level by beating researchers, scientists, industry experts from various reputed companies and institutes.
The application is specially developed for the masses of rural India, where health care is inaccessible, and at times, unaffordable.
"Every one out of seven women has a potential to develop breast cancer. Getting inspired to do something about this, I have researched on breast cancer and come up with the device. It can save thousands of lives," said Bodhisttwa.
"We are very happy for this achievement. This will help women, mostly in the rural areas, in tackling the disease," Om said.
The team is planning to launch the product in the next six months.
