Problem Statements

Green Environment

1.1 Green Environment Awareness

Create an engaging application to bring awareness about Green Environment principles and policies with the context of Madurai, to bring awareness to Madurai Public.
Using this application, Madurai residents should know about the general green policies and Madurai specific policies.
General policies refer to promoting awareness such as reducing wastage of water, electricity and fuel, adopting electric vehicles, shared mode of transports, etc.
Madurai specific policies refer to creating awareness on Madurai corporation centric processes. For e.g., In Madurai, how to dispose construction material wastes, how to dispose hazardous home waste such as batteries, how to dispose medical waste, etc.
Thought starters to think about engaging application can be:
a) voice chat bot in Tamil/English

b) gaming app

c) information centric web/mobile app.
Tags: IT

1.2 Eco Homes and Offices

Considering Madurai weather, provide cost effective and easy to do eco construction and green solutions to reduce the use of air conditioners at homes and offices.
For e.g., you can think of alternate eco friendly construction materials, alternate architectures, and such.
Support your solution with proved (theoritical if practical proofs not available) metrics. For e.g., Provide how much temperature these methods can help to reduce and thus how much saving on electricity is a possibility. How much heat generation is averted?
Solution thought starters:
a) Analysis of commonly used construction materials and methods and the alternatives for the same. For e.g., instead of tiled walls, using unplastered walls may reduce heat by ‘x’ degrees.

b) optimal windows (ventilation) design to reduce heat and increase natural light.

c) designs that support indoor, outdoor, rooftop greens and the effect of that in reducing temperature. Consider the ancient home architecture of our Indian Society - Use of ‘Mutram’, limestone plastering for walls etc.
Tags: Civil, Electrical, Design Thinking, Process

1.3 Madurai Aesthetics

Backside of Madurai Meenakshi College and on the way to Narimedu, there is an open canal where sewage water and waste solids are mixed. Provide a practical solution to clean and maintain this canal
Tags: Chemical, Civil, Process

Solid Waste Management

2.1 Dry solid waste segregator and shredder

Assume households separate wet and dry solid waste. Provide a design for a cost effective machine that segregates and shreds the soft solid waste items to reduce the volume and to make it a useful input for other value creations.
Dry solid wastes can be segregated as plastics (by grades), paper based, metals, glass, e-waste, batteries, clothes. (Exclude construction waste, chemical waste, large items such as furnitures, large size electronics such as TVs, monitors, and such).
Tags: Mechanical, Electrical

2.2 Bio waste volume reducer

Provide a mechanism to reduce volume of kitchen waste in homes, function halls and hotels. This volume reduction mechanism will enable easy collection of kitchen waste and feeding to bio gas plants or factories producing manure;
Some thought starters:
a) solar powered pulveriser that can be operated at home level or community level

b) Design a composting container (compact and aesthetically good) that helps to reduce the waste by bio and/or chemical decaying process
Tags: Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Design thinking

2.3 AI based Wet, dry solid waste segregation identifier

Provide AI based object identification solution that can be used in handheld devices to inspect wastes produced at home and institutional levels and decide whether the segregation follows green disposal policies are not.
Green disposal policy here refers to wet waste and dry waste segregation.
This solution will help households and the larger institutions to check for themselves whether they are doing their disposal right.
This solution will also help the authorities inspect the waste and take necessary actions.
Tags: IT

Infrastructure

3.1 Collaborative platform for urban planning

Provide a collaborative platform for ideal urban planning for Madurai on continual basis. Provide a draft urban planning using that platform considering future population and economic growth. Include below considerations in your planning.
1. Roads should support adequate level of public transport for the population. Consider peak period vehicles, pedestrians and goods movements.

2. Consider narrow areas, crowded tourist/pilgrimage/shopping mall areas and plan suitable public transport vehicles (such as battery car), rental cycles, etc. for those areas.

3. Roads need to support easy pedestrian movements and bicycle movements.

4. Adequate hygiene facilities

5. Greenery to be maintained in all the public parks. Also plan for alternate methods of making greenery such as vertical garden in the pillars of the bridges and public buildings, rooftop gardens, etc.

6. Adequate parking facilities for private vehicles providing strategic connectivity with public transports.
Tags: Civil, Architecture Planning

3.2 Road accidents control

Provide a solution to reduce road accidents in Madurai. Identify any earlier works around this area (for e.g., works like https://www.ijert.org/research/identification-of-accident-hotspots-in-madurai-using-gis-IJERTCONV5IS17008.pdf ) and provide a solution on top of it.
The solution can be from any domain - IT, civil, etc.
For e.g., The solution could be around making structural changes in the accident hot spots to improve visibility; or, fitting vehicles with alert system to alert the driver in areas that are prone to accidents; or, the solution can be a web/mobile app that can be used along with google map and it makes the driver aware of the cautions that need to be taken while driving in the specified selected route.
Tags: Civil, IT, Mechanical

3.3 Map based parking application

Provide a map based web/mobile application that shows all the public and private parking areas of Madurai along with parking fee details.
Provide a mechanism to pay for those parking lots online.
Tags: IT

3.4 Map based ward boundaries app

Provide a map based web/mobile application that shows boundary lines of Madurai civic wards and electoral wards. Many times people forget their wards when they want to report to authorities about debris, stray dogs, sewage blocks, etc. This application will be really useful to Madurai residents.
Tags: IT

3.5 Transportation access to Differently abled persons

Provide a solution for wheelchair bound persons to board trains and buses by themselves or with little assistance. For e.g., Steps or wheels can be fitted with some rails/ramps or other climbing mechanisms.
These rails/ramps can be collapsed and stacked near the door of buses and trains, and it can come to the foreground for the use of wheelchairs by a push of a button or by manual methods.
Tags: Electrical, Mechanical, Design Thinking

Additional Resources

1.1 Green Environment Awareness

Find a good starting point to start building solutions

Start from a few simple points around you and continue from there on. Covering all aspects in one go may be overwhelming.
Look for data around you. For e.g., consider this news. Corporation officials urge the public to segregate waste. Does the common man know how to segregate? What are the segregation categories? What does the person who collects segregated waste do as a next step? Do wastes get mixed up and dumped in water channels?

Ideate the basics

Look for categories of awareness areas such as kitchen, vehicles, electronics, other material use such as stationery, clothes, shoes, jewelleries, etc.
Refer India centric resources such as LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) - https://www.niti.gov.in/life
Refer global resources from journals, newspapers, Governments such as -
https://ecology.wa.gov/Air-Climate/Reducing-Greenhouse-Gas-Emissions/What-you-can-do,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/29/50-ways-to-green-up-your-life-save-the-planet
Gather Madurai centric data such as:
• What is the process to dump construction waste?

• What is the process to dump bio waste such as excess kitchen/food waste from events?

• How to dispose of hazardous waste like batteries?

• How to dispose of large items such as broken furniture, mattress, etc.

Look for contents to build the solution:

To get answers for the above you may need to work in multiple angles and collect the content. You need to approach the problem with the right questions and strive to get answers.

• What is the process set by Madurai Corporation for this? How to make use of these processes? Where to find contact details?

• Where are the dump yards for Madurai wastes and how much gets into those yards on a daily, weekly, monthly basis?

• How much gets dumped in pathways, highways, waterbodies? Why do people do what they do?

• Are there NGOs doing work around this? How to make use of their services? Are their communication channels known to the common man?

• Are there Sustainable Development Goal related businesses that can pay for the wastes?
You may need to refer to Madurai corporation sites, talk to civic body officers, talk to NGOs operating in this domain, green enthusiasts, sustainable development goal oriented business, etc.
Once enough content is gathered, structure your content as a gaming or info centric application that Madurai people can use. Build in some measurement mechanism and reward mechanism at the community of individual level. For e.g., Thirunagar scores 20 points for segregation, KK nagar scores 30points, and such.

1.2 Eco Homes and Offices