Rothberg Catalyzer Hackathon 2019

Given the time constraint of a week, this project was weighed heavily towards ideation, market scope and packaging known technologies. The problem statement was to provide inexpensive, reliable lighting in under resoucerd areas. We realized most of the efforts going in on this have all been towards personal portable lighting or really heavy on infrastructure power grids. There was no middle ground. We decided to fill this gap. I built the electrical and electronics of this hub and spoke system where the hub was a portable community lighting source (The Hub) that was also a safety beacon and the spoke was a personal lighting lamp with an SOS system that would communicate with the “Hub” via Bluetooth to alert the community. This was a valuable addition especially in under resourced areas where lack of law enforcement makes them breeding grounds for crime. Unfortunately, I could not find a working video for this project. I will try digging through all my files to find it and I will update this post when I do.

Meanwhile, this was the slide deck we presented for the competition. These were great bunch of people I got to work with and hack together. They are all up there in the picture:(from left-right) Steve Lin, me, Tanvi Dhande, Raghav Madan, Kunal Ashok