A common problem faced today by all individuals has been the lack of time to manage a lot of the daily activities. A lot of new technologies try to catch up with this factor to make things easier and all this comes with a great deal of investement. More often these solutions that are made neverthless dont concentrate on most of the issues that we daily undergo and we could do something there.
In the last couple of days I observed (while walking/driving) through bangalore city a lot of use cases that could be collected and also be addressed gracefully .
A few of the pain points that I noticed :
- A lot of street lights still need a physical person to come over and switch them all on or off (Most often the scenario is its always unpredictable when they really do it).
Possible low stream solution : May be an RTC controlled street light would be a good thing to have !
Professional solution : A networked system of lights to a centralized control zone which enables a common system to control all of them gracefully.
- Electricity supply (A much debated political issue). I have always wondered does anyone really know when the main power lines will go on for a toss? .
Possible low stream solution : Can there be a portal delivering the status of power cuts on a webpage or may be an SMS service that can really help us know the schedule of power cuts in a particular region of city.
- A lot of pipes leaking water and a good old techique to tie up the cloth and stop them . I wonder how does the official responsible for maintainig it really know ?
Possible low stream DIY solution: Is there a possibility to have a sensor based system that triggers upon possible detection of leak and inform the official.
- The number of people who suffer from traffic jams and reaching late to offices is a big issue.
Possible Solution : Can the traffic signals transmit their status , when they will go “ON” again really letting us know what options and permutations of routes will let us reach the destination with less time and also the unpredictable “Take Diversion” board that you may enounter any time and anywhere without any clue.
- Shopping complexes: The current scenario is you can walk into a super market and pick up your choice within no time but have to wait endelessly to get the billing process to happen.
Possible Solution : Can all the shopping carts be equipped with a bar code scanner as well as thermal printer and you could unlock and open the cart only when the swipe of the card gets accepted.
With the growing opposition on outsourcing i think big indian firms should really address these smaller issues and this will not only benefit them with large volume of work but also make our country a smarter place to live.
With cities like bangalore, hyderabad , Mumbai, Chennai..etc in India talking more and more about the big leaders in industries talking about their quarterly (million/billion) earnings . It might also be a good use case for them to work on these minor aspects and make India a smarter place to live with smart systems not only doing sophisticated things but also cater to the daily needs of life.
Urban rethinking and Simplifying Technology for Life are only things that can make things better !
