PRESS RELEASE
 
ASEI HOSTS SUCCESSFUL VIRTUAL CONVENTION
 
American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin (ASEI) hosted its 33rd Annual National Convention focusing on Global Engineering & Technologies (GET-2020). This virtual convention was held on December 5th and 6th, 2020. While the speakers and participants were on the Zoom platform, it was live-streamed worldwide through YouTube.  Attended by scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and corporate leaders across the USA, the two-day event featured keynotes and multiple interactive sessions with prominent business and technology leaders, scientists, and engineering entrepreneurs. At the Finale session on the second day, ASEI recognized four engineering achievers and four service excellence and contributors to ASEI.
 
The convention started with a welcome by ASEI President Jwalant Lakhia. It was emceed by Anu Gopalakrishnan. The first keynote speaker Deval Desai, VP Magna Int. spoke about Contributions of Indian Technologists and weaved the storyline from mythology to history to modern era in a very short span of time. From making the best steel in the world to teaching the world to count, India was actively contributing to the field of science and technology long before the modern world evolved. One of the oldest civilizations in the world, India has a strong tradition of science and technology. Many theories and techniques discovered by the ancient Indians have created and strengthened the fundamentals of modern science and technology. While some of these groundbreaking contributions have been acknowledged, some are still unknown to most, and he shared some of the profound inventions that have and will continue to shape the future of humankind. It was heartening to see the contribution of Indian women scientists and engineers highlighted in a field typically dominated by men. There were so many factoids about things and achievements of unsung engineering heroes that would make anyone hailing from the Indian subcontinent proud!
 
The first technical session Quantum computing by Dancing with Qubits was a keynote by Dr Robert Sutor, VP Quantum, IBM Research. Quantum computing aims to solve complex problems the world's most powerful supercomputers cannot solve. Leading the race in this field is IBM, though Google, Microsoft, Amazon and lot of others are all putting heavy investment bets in Quantum as well. Considering application in life sciences, an example was presented as follows: On average, it takes 10 to13 years and more than $2.5 billion to bring a new medical therapy from the discovery bench to the patient. The odds of success are overwhelmingly weighted in favor of failure. Harnessing the power of quantum computing can deliver the potential to significantly accelerate the timelines for, and enhance the quality of various stages of pharmaceutical research and development processes. That was very futuristic and sounded exciting.
 
According to Dr. Sutor, Quantum promises to tackle classically challenging problems across a variety of industries, from optimizing traffic control to refining supply chain logistics, and from discovering new drugs to detecting fraud more rapidly. Also, anyone can now try out the power of quantum on the IBM cloud for free with toolkits and resources available freely!
 
The next speaker was Prof Solomon Darwin, often known as the "Father of Smart Village Movement." Dr, Darwin spoke on Agritech innovations for a Smarter Village. Dr Darwin shared how UC Berkeley Haas School defines the concept and after that shared about his books and publications in addition to the agricultural innovations that have the potential to make villages smarter with minimal resources.
 
The next session was on User Experience Design (UXD), which is a design process whose sole objective is to design a system that offers a great experience to its users. Thus, UXD embraces the theories of a number of disciplines such as user interface design, usability, accessibility, information architecture, and Human Computer Interaction. The first speaker Urmila Kashyap, Senior User Experience Designer with VMware, talked about UX design systems for enterprise products based on her 10+ years of UXD experience working with large companies like Moody's & VMware. Surbhi Kaul, GM and Head of Product at Juniper Networks, built on it and shared from her own experience of building and launching products over two decades at Netflix, Cisco, YouTube, Google and Juniper Networks covering why UXD is critical to a product’s success and highlighted design systems using examples of AIML products she has helped launch.
 
An engineering and technology conference can’t be complete without covering Artificial Intelligence (AI). One might imagine that artificial intelligence is only something the big tech giants are focused on, and that AI doesn't impact your everyday life. In reality, Artificial Intelligence is increasingly penetrating both our work and personal lives. Yet, many organizations in traditional industries are still grappling with justifying the ROI beyond proof-of-concept stage and struggling with operationalizing AI/ML. From a research to engineering to business perspective, a complete CXO view is needed which was provided by an IBM Fellow and Master Inventor with over 45 patents to her name - Rama Akkiraju, CTO AIOps addressing this daunting challenge and shared some best practices in this session on Artificial Intelligence in the Enterprise.
 
Autonomous Vehicles and Future Transportation is an interesting topic in which Jeff Hannah, Director, NA SBD Automotive & Akshay Desai, Associate Partner, McKinsey presented their POVs and tried separating fact from fiction about autonomous cars. Whether you are an automotive expert or newbie, one could gain valuable insights into the future of mobility and learn exciting ways to participate in this growing industry. Desai focussed on the future for autonomous vehicle adoption and the changing AV mobility market. The session was moderated by Convention Co-Chair Bhavesh Joshi.
 
The objective of the YTE was to provide a forum for young engineers, students and budding scientists to showcase their projects in science, engineering and technology topics that can have an impact on our world. The finalist students faced a barrage of questions from the judges Amrish Chopra and Mutthu Sivanathan. This competition and session was conceived and coordinated by the Conference Content Chair and President of ASEI-Silicon Valley Piyush Malik.
 
It was a tight race to pick winners based on combining scores from responses to judges’s questions, audience poll and quality and depth of engineering and research in their submissions from prior rounds. Finally, the top 3 winners declared were: (1) Nidhi Mathihali (2) Jyoti Rani and (3) Isha Jagadish.
 
The second day started with ASEI President Jwalant Lakhia welcoming the audience back and laying out the plan for the day. At the outset it became pretty clear to the audience that they would hear some high-powered content led by industry leaders lined up for the day. 
 
Opening keynote on Leadership in turbulent times was delivered by Dr. Satyam Priyadarshy, Chief Data Scientist & Technology Fellow, Haliburton. Leadership in turbulent times is a critically important topic and pertinent considering the current socio-geo-politico-economic scenario in the COVID era. Dr. Priyadarshy, is a globally recognized leader for his expertise in leveraging disruptive technologies, strategies and talent transformation to increase business value. He applied ancient Indian wisdom from Hanuman Chalisa to talk about a framework to face disruption in tumultuous times. According to Dr. Priyadarshy, every challenge from the past looks smaller. Paradigm shifts, Leading the transformation with a mnemonic “Karma Matters” and putting the essence of all management texts with 20 words from the religious prayer, he beautifully showed the audience some leadership lessons that have helped him as well as the teams he has led from academics to corporate life.
 
The next keynote session Career Management in a Disrupted Economy was delivered by Dilip Saraf who is an IIT Alumnus and has reinvented himself 5 times to be a Career and Life Coach besides being an Author and speaker. Dilip very succinctly brought out the problem and solution pertinent to those facing career challenges during this Covid-19 pandemic which has jolted us into action with a career wake-up call with uncertainty about how future jobs will emerge. Using examples from his own career shifts as well as couple of his high-profile clients, Saraf’s talk on career management was about strategies available to all of us to better manage our career and to develop resilient options for us to deal with this uncertainty and to stay in control of our own destinies.
 
The next session was an inspiring fireside chat conducted by Piyush Malik, SVP SpringML, with Naveen Jain, CEO Viome & Founder/Chairman - Moon Express on Exponential Technologies for Humanity’s Grand Challenges. The session saw both engaged in a high energy conversation on exponential technologies and life sciences. For the uninitiated, exponential technologies are those which are rapidly accelerating and shaping major industries and all aspects of our lives. For a technology to be “exponential,” the power and/or speed doubles each year, and/or the cost drops by half. As in Moore’s law!
 
Exponential technologies include artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality (AR, VR), data science, digital biology and biotech, medicine, nanotech and digital fabrication, networks and computing systems, robotics, and autonomous vehicles. Solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges lie at the intersection of these exponential technologies.
 
In the next session Cybersecurity: Opportunity of Threat? the audience learned about the latest trends in cybersecurity from Anand Oswal, SVP and GM at PaloAlto Networks and was joined in conversation with popular cybersecurity strategist and influencer Matthew Rosenquist who is currently the Chief Information Security Officer at Eclipz
 
Cybersecurity has taken center stage in the enterprise executive mind as cases of ransomware and denial of services attacks and data breaches have kept the CISOs of the nation occupied. However, currently the biggest threats are often also the biggest opportunities. Cybersecurity is imperative for enterprises as well as nations today. Projections are that cybercrime will exceed $6 trillion annually by 2021 from $3 trillion in 2015, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. Probably the most a significant factor driving this acceleration is the increasing efficiency of cybercriminals. The dark web has become a thriving black market where criminals of all means can gain the capabilities necessary to launch sophisticated cyberattacks.
 
Anand talked about the 3 concurrent mega transitions in enterprise IT that are impacting network security viz. Rise of a mobile workforce, Shift to hybrid cloud and Direct to app architectures. The fireside chat drew a number of interesting questions from the audience which kept the session flow lively.
 
The enterprise technology landscape has increasingly become difficult to manage for a CIO whose role has evolved from a Chief Information Officer to a Chief Innovation Officer in the past few years. With digital transformation mandate becoming table stakes, rapid adoption of Cloud and work-from-anywhere becoming a norm, the technology woes of an enterprise CTO or a CIO seems to be unending and may have been exacerbated due to the current pandemic.
 
The next session was the powerful CXO fireside chat focusing on Innovation in the Enterprise with Manoj Prasad, VP & Global CTO, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Prakash Kota, CIO Autodesk, moderated by Rakesh Guliani. What does a CTO of a public company worry about? How does the CIO become indispensable in M&A decisions? How will this pandemic change the pace of innovation in enterprise technology? These and many more topics were central to this conversation where we also found how Thermofisher Scientific is at the forefront of fight against COVID!
 
“Space - the final frontier” these words from Star Trek can hardly be erased from memory of those who grew up watching the science fiction TV series. Many of the innovations shown have transcended from fiction into reality as commercial space tourism is set to start and our exploratory missions to either colonizing the moon or to become a multi planetary species have been progressing well with many successful missions with robots to Mars and beyond in the past decade thanks to NASA, ISRO, European Space Agency, SpaceX and other commercial aerospace companies. The next session speaker was a super smart NASA/BAERI Space scientist Dr Sreeja Nag who also happened to be a Robotist at Nuro. Speaking on Robotics and Space, she shared her experiences on autonomous robots that work on earth as well as in the space. 
 
The last session of the Convention was the ASEI Awards which was anchored by Dr Thomas Abraham, Chair Awards Committee. Chief Guest was Ambassador Amit Kumar, Consul General India in Chicago. Consul General Kumar emphasized the importance of Indian American engineers and scientists pooling their talents to help India. He also presided over the function where 8 industry and ASEI awards were given out and each recipient gave a brief acceptance speech. The awardees are as follows:
 
ASEI Lifetime Achievement -Naveen Jain
 
ASEI Entrepreneur of The Year - Jyoti Bansal
 
ASEI Engineer of The Year (Mech/Solar) - Dr Yogi Goswami
 
ASEI Engineer pf The Year (Industrial Operations and Product Management) - Deval Desai
 
ASEI Service Excellence Award – Rakesh Patel
 
Hari Bindal ASEI Founders Award - Vatsala Upadhyay
 
Leadership and Contribution to ASEI - Rakesh Guliani and Sunita Dublish  
 
Dr Neeraj Bindal, son of ASEI Founder the Late Dr. Hari Bindal gave a moving tribute to his father as he presented the Founder’s award to Vatsala.    
 
The convention was put together by ASEI President Jwalant Lakhia along with Convention Co-chairs Rakesh Patel and Bhavesh Joshi. The Program chair was ASEI Michigan Chapter President Vatsala Upadhyay. ASEI Silicon Valley Chapter President Piyush Malik served as Convention Content Chair.
 
About ASEI
 
The American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin (ASEI) is a not-for-profit organization that provides a platform for networking, career advancement, community service, mentoring and technology exchange for professionals, students and businesses in the United States and abroad. Members are guided by several objectives, including the creation of an open, inclusive, and transparent organization; providing positive role models, awarding scholarships, and remaining socially responsible. ASEI was founded in 1983 in Detroit, Michigan by a handful of visionaries. Today, the organization also has chapters in Michigan, Southern California, Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Washington, DC. For more information, visit: www.aseiusa.org.
 
**
 
Note to Editor – If you need more information, please contact Dr. Thomas Abraham at 203-329-8010 or innoresearch@optonline.net

American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin (ASEI) is hosting the 33rd Annual National Convention focusing on Global Engineering & Technologies (GET-2020). This virtual convention will be held starting on December 5th and end on Dec. 6th, 2020 from 1 pm to 4 pm (EST). The objective of this event is to provide a forum to promote and share advancements related to the latest cutting-edge innovations and technologies across various engineering disciplines. The convention is expected to be virtually attended by scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and corporate leaders across the USA and globally. This two-day event will feature keynotes and multiple interactive sessions with prominent business and technology leaders, scientists, media personalities, educators, policymakers, and investment bankers.
 
The convention will have multiple interactive sessions led by deep subject matter experts providing information and insight on many topics related to the convention theme. Speakers include Viome CEO Naveen Jain, Palo Alto Networks Senior VP & GM Anand Oswal, Prof. Solomon Darwin of UC Berkeley-Haas Center for Corporate Innovation, Halliburton Chief Data-Scientist Dr Satyam Priyadarshy; Surbhi Kaul, GM & Head of Product, Juniper Networks; Space & Robotics Scientist Dr. Sreeja Nag at NASA/BAERI & Nuro.AI, Eclipz Chief Information Security Officer Matthew Rosenquist, Thermo Fisher Scientific VP & Global CTO Manoj Prasad, Autodesk Chief Information Officer Prakash Kota, IBM Fellow Rama Akkiraju, Magna International  VP Deval Desai, SBD Automotive North America Director Jeffrey Hannah, McKinsey & Company Associate Partner Akshay Desai and Quantum Computing VP Robert Sutor, SpringML Senior Vice President, Piyush Malik.
 
There will be a Youth Technology Exposition (YTE) for young scientists and students from High School to Undergrad engineering during this virtual ASEI National Convention. The objective of the YTE is to provide a forum for young engineers, students and budding scientists to showcase their projects in science, engineering and technology topics that can have an impact on our world.
 
The convention is put together by ASEI President Jwalant Lakhia along with Convention Co-chairs Rakesh Patel and Bhavesh Joshi. The Convention Technology chair is ASEI Michigan Chapter President Vatsala Upadhyay. ASEI Silicon Valley Chapter President Piyush Malik is serving as the Convention Content Chair.
 
The convention will end with a finale awards ceremony session on December 6th at 3.30 pm (EST). where eight outstanding achievers and those who contributed to ASEI growth and society at large will be honored. This year’s outstanding achievement awards go to the following:
 
ASEI Lifetime Achievement Award – Naveen Jain, CEO, Viome and Chairman, Moon Express.
ASEI Entrepreneur of the Year – Jyoti Bansal, Serial entrepreneur and a Silicon Valley technology visionary
Engineer of the Year Award in Mechanical/Solar Energy– Prof. D. Yogi Goswami, Ph.D, PE, Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Clean Energy Research Center at the University of South Florida and in Product Engineering and Operations Management – Deval Desai, Vice President & India Country Head, Magna International
 
ASEI will also honor four others for their dedicated service to ASEI:
ASEI Service Excellence Award – Rakesh Patel, Former President and Current Treasurer, ASEI; Hari Bindal ASEI Founders Award - Vatsala Upadhyay, ASEI Michigan President, and Leadership and Contribution to ASEI - Rakesh Guliani and Sunita Dublish , ASEI Silicon Valley Chapter
 
ASEI President Jwalant Lakhia said, "ASEI is very pleased to recognize all awardees for their dedication, hard work, and exemplary contribution in their respective fields. We plan to continue with our annual tradition of acknowledging those who have made outstanding contributions in Technology and Engineering and those who have done extraordinary work to support ASEI"
ASEI Board Member Dr. Thomas Abraham served as Awards Committee Chair. Dr. Abraham said that ASEI is a great organization providing a broad platform for the Indian origin engineers, technologists and scientists and it provides wide networking opportunities for all engineering professionals as well as makes them engaged in new technologies. “ASEI resources can be pooled to benefit in India’s development,” Dr. Abraham added.
 
AWARDEES 2020
 
ASEI Lifetime Achievement Award – Naveen Jain, CEO, Viome and Chairman, Moon Express
Naveen Jain is an entrepreneur driven to solve global grand challenges through innovation. He is the founder of several successful companies including Moon Express, Viome, Bluedot, TalentWise, Intelius and InfoSpace. Moon Express is the only company in the world to have the permission to leave earth Viome is focused on disrupting healthcare with the goal of “making illness elective” by identifying microbial biomarkers that are predictive of chronic diseases and to adjust the microbial imbalance through personalized nutrition. Naveen Jain has been awarded many honors for his entrepreneurial successes.
 
ASEI Entrepreneur of the Year – Jyoti Bansal, Serial entrepreneur and a Silicon Valley technology visionary
Jyoti Bansal is a serial entrepreneur and a Silicon Valley technology visionary. An alum from IIT Delhi, he believes passionately in software’s ability to change the world for the better. In 2008, he founded AppDynamics, an application intelligence company that was acquired by Cisco for $3.7 Billion. Since then, he founded BIG Labs and is CEO & Co-founder of Harness, and CEO & Co-founder of Traceable - a software cybersecurity company. Also, he founded Unusual Ventures, a new $400 Million venture capital fund focused on helping early-stage technology entrepreneurs. 
 
Engineer of the Year Award (Mechanical/Solar Energy) – Prof. D. Yogi Goswami, Ph.D., PE, Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Clean Energy Research Center at the University of South Florida
Dr. Goswami is the Distinguished University Professor and Director of the Clean Energy Research Center at the University of South Florida. Professor Goswami is the Editor-in-Chief of the Solar Energy journal, and Progress in Solar Energy. He is an author or editor 16 books and more than 300 refereed technical papers. He is a recipient of many distinguished awards for his outstanding work. Dr. Goswami is a recipient of the highest energy-related awards of ASME, ASES, ISES and AAES and more than 50 other awards and certificates from major engineering and scientific societies.
 
Engineer of the Year Award (Product Engineering and Operations Management) – Deval Desai, Vice President & India Country Head, Magna International
Deval Desai serves as Vice President and India Country Head at Magna International, a global automotive supplier that designs, develops and manufactures components and systems for the world’s leading automakers. In this position, Desai is responsible for digital marketing, strategic business development and continued expansion in India, and serves as one of the senior representatives for Magna in India.
 
ASEI Service Excellence Award – Rakesh Patel, Former President and Current Treasurer, ASEI
Rakesh Patel is an engineer, entrepreneur, board advisor, and IT consultant for the various domains of emerging technologies. He has been working as a Global IT compliance at General Motors for the past 8 years. Previously, he has provided IT consulting to IBM, Chrysler, EDS, HP, Ford, and various other industries. Serving as Board Member, Vice President, President and currently as Treasurer, Rakesh has also been serving as executive and board member at various professional and non-profit organizations. Rakesh has an Engineering Degree from India and MS in management technology from the University of Phoenix.
 
 
 
Hari Bindal ASEI Founders Award - Vatsala Upadhyay, ASEI Michigan President
Vatsala Upadhyay is the IT Systems Architect at Seco Tools. She has almost 30 years of experience in collaboration solutions and CRM applications across multi-platforms. Master’s in computer applications from BIT, Mesra with Executive MBA degree, she has professional certifications in Project Management, ITIL, Scrum, and Six Sigma. Vatsala is extremely passionate about life and values each moment as a beautiful gift. She has been a national level volleyball player back in India and is a techno-geek, who believes that there is a solution for every problem, we need to just look deep enough.
 
Leadership and Contribution to ASEI - Rakesh Guliani and Sunita Dublish , ASEI Silicon Valley Chapter
Rakesh Guliani is Vice President at Park Computer Systems and has served as director at ASEI Silicon Valley chapter focusing on  STEM  and internship initiatives. With education and background in software engineering and entrepreneurial experience of building a job board and application tracking system, he drives innovative solutions, coaches leaders to be successful, and develops strong, diverse teams. Attracting, retaining, mentoring, and developing talent is his key strength. 
Sunita Dublish is a web developer with front-end as well as back-end skills and more than 15 years of experience in web development. She believes in creating great experiences for end-users. She has worked at start-ups, nonprofit and for-profit companies. She has a Computer Science degree from IET, Lucknow. She also serves and has served on the boards of several nonprofit organizations. Sunita has served as ASEI Silicon Valley volunteer for a few years and is now Director IT.
 
About ASEI
The American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin (ASEI) is a not-for-profit organization that provides a platform for networking, career advancement, community service, mentoring and technology exchange for professionals, students and businesses in the United States and abroad. Members are guided by several objectives, including the creation of an open, inclusive, and transparent organization; providing positive role models, awarding scholarships, and remaining socially responsible. ASEI was founded in 1983 in Detroit, Michigan by a handful of visionaries. Today, the organization also has chapters in Michigan, Southern California, Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Washington, DC. For more information, visit www.aseiusa.org.
 
Note to Editor – If you need more information, please contact Dr. Thomas Abraham at 203-329-8010 or innoresearch@optonline.net

TRIBUTE TO DR. HARI BINDAL
 
ASEI grieves the demise of its Founder Dr. Hari Bindal, who passed away on Sunday, November 8th, 2020. Dr. Bindal took leadership in starting ASEI in 1983. Dr. Bindal along with other founding members laid a solid foundation for ASEI. Dr. Bindal was instrumental in setting the vision and mission for ASEI. As a result, ASEI is one of the oldest and largest organizations in the USA that focuses on providing a strong forum to the technical community of Indian origin.  Dr. Bindal dedicated his personal time for many years to ensure ASEI is a valuable resource for all. He supported ASEI financially by sponsoring many initiatives such as conventions, student scholarships, and service awards. Compassion and drive to help those in need had been the center of Dr. Bindal’s actions throughout his unwavering support for ASEI.
 
Dr. Bindal was a recipient of numerous local, national, and international awards including the 'Pravasi Bharatiya Samman' Award 2017, from the President of India and 'Pravasi UP Ratna' Award 2019, from the Governor of Uttar Pradesh. Other than ASEI, Dr. Bindal had served numerous Indian American social, cultural, political, and religious organizations in various capacities. His passion and dedication to selfless community service were appreciated and recognized by people in India and in the USA. ASEI was very fortunate to have Dr. Bindal as a mentor, guide, and visionary.  He successfully demonstrated that while staying away from India, it is still possible to support India and the Indian origin of people through organizations such as ASEI.
 
Saying that we at ASEI will miss Dr. Bindal is an understatement. Our sincere condolences to Dr. Bindal’s family as we keep Dr. Bindal in our thoughts and prayers.
 
 
Sincerely,
 
Jwalant Lakhia
Jwalant Lakhia (jklakhia@gmail.com)
President, American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin (ASEI)

Leadership   Passion  Experience   Professional Skills   Time
        

 
Dear ASEI Members,
  
The National Board of ASEI needs to conduct its 2021 election to fill the Board of Directors' open positions. Hence, the purpose of this communication is to request nominations from the membership or the ASEI National Board of Directors. There are five open positions that will be filled through this nomination process.

You can self-nominate or nominate someone else for the ASEI National Board position. If nominating someone else, please get concurrence from your nominee before submitting the nomination.

To be eligible to become a board member, the person must be an ASEI paid member in good standing for one year, actively participated in ASEI activities, and must have exhibited leadership qualities from experiences that would add significant value to the board. The nominee must be ready and willing to participate in all (or almost all) board meetings and contribute by participating in ASEI activities including membership of various committees of ASEI.

Please copy-paste the following link to submit your nomination. The deadline to submit nominations is November 30th, 2020.
 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1F5CPse6c2dbf1d83TNLoyS_iDSbFshLcgYO1P-KooFM/edit?usp=sharing
 
Sincerely,Bhavesh JoshiVice President, ASEI National BoardChairman, 2020 ASEI National Board Election Committee
Election Committee: Bhavesh Joshi, Ananth Sarkar and Suresh Ladva

Title: Custom Farm Survey Model based on SSD with Inception V2 and AI-Driven Harvesting Robot for Efficient Strawberry Farming
 
Problem and Background Research: Today farmers pick strawberries with a fixed number of workers on alternate days, an inefficient process with high labor costs and 30% fruit wastage. Artificial Intelligence and Robotics can make strawberry farming efficient by reducing labor costs. Computer Vision-based Object Detection could identify ripe strawberries, providing more information on the farm’s status and allowing farmers to plan labor dynamically.
This model could also be used to automate fruit picking to further reduce the labor needs. However, existing object detection models are not designed for strawberry farming and perform poorly.
 
Proposed Solution:The proposed solution addresses the problem in two parts. The first is a custom Object Detection Model based on the Single Shot Detector (SSD) Inception V2 Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) Image Recognition Model to identify and classify strawberries as semi-ripe, ripe, or overripe. The second is a Harvester Python program that uses this custom model, a uArm Swift Pro Robotic Arm and Intel Real Sense D415 Camera with depth perception to identify and pick the strawberries. The model-building process involves the collection of data from a strawberry farm, the preparation of said data for the model, training the model using this data and validating the model. The Harvester program processes the video stream from the camera in real time, uses the custom strawberry recognition model from the first part to identify and classify strawberries and uses the depth stream from the camera to determine the position of the strawberries. The program then transforms the XYZ coordinates from the camera to the robot’s reference coordinate system and directs the robot arm gripper to pick the identified berries and drop into a basket.
 
Design Criteria:Design criteria for the classification system are to identify 70% of all visible strawberries and classify them with at least 70% confidence as ripe, overripe, or semi-ripe. The harvesting system must be able to identify 90% of strawberries and harvest 90% of fruit.
 
Results:The model is trained with a total of 10,000 objects in 25,000 iterations. When tested with 400 strawberries, the model is able to identify and classify 84% ripe and 78% over-ripe strawberries. However, only 59% of semi-ripe fruit are detected, due to fewer such fruit in the training data. Over multiple runs under daylight and indoor light conditions, the robot was able to identify over 90% of the strawberries and harvest 90% of the identified strawberries on average.
 
Conclusion:In conclusion, the proposed custom machine learning model can classify strawberries effectively and the robot is able to pick ripe strawberries consistently. The project meets the specified design criteria, except for detecting semi-ripe strawberries. Training the model with more data and longer can improve the accuracy of the model further.
 
Future Work:Future work includes generating strawberry classification and recommended labor reports, training the model with diseases and weeds for providing a farm health status, improving the speed and cost of the robot and deploying the harvester program into an edge device to run the robot in a self-sufficient manner.
 
Author:
 
Aditya Indla is  a rising junior at Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose. He believes in using science and technology to solve real-world problems. Some examples of projects he has built include a smart air-purifier controller, an early wildfire warning system and a robot strawberry picker using AI. During the COVID-19 crisis, he raised funds and worked with his  school and a non-profit MakerLab to 3D print PPE for healthcare workers. He also provides tech support at a local senior center. He’s a member of Bellarmine Speech & Debate and Quizbowl clubs.
 

You open your wallet and take out the right amount of cash. You may think this is an easy task, but not for all. The visually impaired struggle to perform daily tasks that we consider simple. I experienced this firsthand when I visited my grandfather last summer in India. He had lost complete vision through his left eye, and his right eye vision was quickly deteriorating. After seeing his condition, I was determined to help the visually impaired lead an easier life. I decided to create a device that assists the visually impaired by reading dollar bills, improving the shopping experience, and in turn boosting social confidence with peers/friends. In order to gain more insight into the situation, I visited the Shree Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind in India, where I interacted with blind students of ages ranging from 6 to 12. In a survey, I gave them two options to pick: a smartphone money reader app or a clip-on device to their sunglasses that can read out the dollar bill denomination. The choice was very clear: the clip-on device because of its ease of use and affordability. Using these responses, I started to create my device.
Creating the device was split into three main parts: (1) creating the machine learning model that can accurately identify the denomination of the different dollar bills, (2) using the Raspberry Pi to take the photo, and (3)mounting the Raspberry Pi on top of sunglasses and testing the prototype.
 
To create the model, there were two approaches: using (1) Google Vision’s API AutoML to train and test a model based on a set of images that I provide to the API OR using (2) Keras and Tensorflow libraries to code a model. I started off by using the AutoML API, which gave very promising results. Using this API, I created 2 models: the first model had a total of 400 images of one, five, ten, and twenty dollar bills and an accuracy of 81.8%, while the second model had over 1000 images and an accuracy of 97.8%. Although these models gave very accurate results, AutoML works by connecting the model to the cloud, and thus the model will only work if the device is connected to the Internet. Therefore, to be able to operate in the absence of the Internet, I created models using Keras and Tensorflow libraries. Using these libraries and other resources, I created 4 models, the last one having an accuracy of about 70%. Next, the device uses the Pi Camera to take an image and using the model, predicts the image, and identifies the denomination.
Overall, the final model has 5000 images and an accuracy of 70%. In the future, I plan to
communicate the denomination to the user via Bluetooth earphones, convert the device into a
PCB board, to make it more compact and lighter, so it can be installed on sunglasses, and visit different blind schools and get feedback on the device.
 
Nidhi Mathihalli is a rising sophomore at Saratoga High School. She has a passion for Machine Learning and wants to use her skills to help better the world and help others in need. In her free time, she codes for her projects and for robotics, as well as play piano.

Title  
Picture Perfect Diet: An app to classify food products, with OCR, for recommending substitutes based  on a chosen diet.  
Motivation  
With many tempting food environments around us, it is easy to make poor diet choices, leading to  more deaths in the population than any other risk factor. This necessitates us to learn more about how  to make better choices regarding what foods we consume. My iOS app, Dietologist, allows users to  have a quick and easy way to scan the nutrient label of a food product, find out if it corresponds to  their diet choices, and, if not, get a recommendation for an alternate food product that does.  
Problem Statement  
We live in a world where, occasionally, the information we hear about the enticing foods and their  effects is not correct, leading to our poor decisions.. My app, Dietologist, helps in addressing this, by  enabling users to make informed choices about the food that they consume in diverse food  environments like what we have today.  
Approach  
To solve this problem, I wanted to provide information to users, when they needed it the most, through  an iOS app. Before I started coding, I wrote my design criteria. I then created several simulations of  how the user interface of the app would be while learning the basics of building iOS apps. I practiced  by making simpler apps, started building the user interface of the app, and finally coded the logic and  tested on a connected iPhone. I then published it in the app store (after writing a simple privacy policy  and support document), after getting the app approved by Apple. Finally, I initiated study with 10  participants, tabulating and analyzing the results after the study period.  
Results  
The results from my study showed that my iOS app, Dietologist, helped the participants make good  food choices, resulting in them adhering to their dietary restrictions. It showed that 65% of the  participants indicated that they did not consume the desired food that did not correspond to their diet  and instead chose a suggested alternate. 99.6% of the participants responded that the app accurately  classified their food product based on its nutrient label, and 95% of the participants who initially chose  a food product that did not correspond to their dietary choice, indicated that the suggested alternate  given was accurate.  
Conclusions  

The issues surrounding diet choices is a very active research topic that has the potential to significantly  change nutrition management for us. I plan on further improving my app in order to make it more  feature rich for the benefit of the users. This project explores nutritional values by using optical  character recognition to classify foods, and provides alternate foods if needed. A unique iOS app is  presented to provide the information needed to improve dieting through machine scanning of nutrition  labels and their information.
 
 





Divya Venkataraman is a High School Student in Silicon Valley and by virtue of winning Science Fair in March 2020, was recognized and invited to participate in ASEI's STEM event for budding engineers BETS2020 and was inducted into ASEI Silicon Valley as a student member. She is incredibly passionate about research (particularly in the field of Neuroscience), the relationship between the mind and nutrition, Alzheimer's/Parkinson’s disease studies, as well as easing human suffering through the magic of medicine. With her passion, research, and volunteering, she aspires to make a change in the world of healthcare, starting with her very own community. She deeply enjoys contributing to a cause that benefits such a wide range of people, and hopes to make a difference in patient health through her care and efforts.





 
 

Jyoti Rani is a Senior at Oak Grove High School in the Silicon Valley and her recent project won accolades at various science competitions this year, including the Golden Ticket at ASEI Budding Engineer Talent Showcase 2020.
Here's more details about her winning entry
Project vBird: A Novel Extreme Precision Approach to UAV Autonomous Delivery Implementing Ultra Wide Bandwidth Tracking (UWB)
 
Abstract:
Increased usage of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for rapid delivery of time-sensitive items over rugged terrains in scenarios like natural disaster response promises to save time, effort, costs, & more lives. 

UAVs currently rely on GPS, but its signal is easily interfered with & weakened by buildings, smoke, clouds, & mountains (factors highly likely to be present in natural disaster scenarios), yielding a theoretical accuracy of 10 meters at best. Moreover, current UAV control software is difficult and cumbersome to use for the layman even while setting up basic flight paths. Assisted GPS (AGPS) systems, such as RTK, WAAS, & DGPS use network positioning and ground-based stations to filter out bad data, but that process usually takes additional computational time and causes delays. Other researchers have tried supplementing GPS data with onboard inertial measurement unit (IMU) data, but these approaches still do not address the issue of the GPS signal itself being distorted. Ultra-Wide Bandwidth (UWB) is a closed, local positioning system that provides raw coordinate position data with a theoretical accuracy of 10 CENTIMETERS. Our aim is to build a robust, local, alternative, scalable UAV system consisting of a full-stack, user-friendly software platform, implementing a novel UWB approach to autonomously coordinate UAVs with a theoretical precision that is 100x better than GPS for the intended purpose of payload delivery. The three components of Project vBird include UAV & UWB integration, full-stack web application Flyte Software, and custom hardware. FlyteSoftware, implementing HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Python Websockets & GeoGebra API, allows users to easily create multi-segmented flight paths by drawing them with their mouse (or finger). Our algorithms can also simulate the flight paths and waypoint navigation for a UAV swarm in a chosen geometric formation. The Python-based backend’s real-time tracking algorithm pulls sensor data from a UWB listener over a COM port connection and provides a real-time mission update log. It also smartly detects deviations, such as those caused by wind, & reroutes the UAV towards the final destination. With regards to physical testing, our tailored, versatile, 3D printed UWB anchor cases allow for simple setup and configuration of the UWB system within minutes. First, we verified the theoretical accuracy of the UWB hardware by using the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) & Average of Residuals statistical analyses of the sensor data to determine the experimental accuracy (0.068 meters). Next, we mounted the UWB chip on our DJI Tello UAV and ran 3-5 runs (due to very low variability in data collected) on several distinct flight paths and used statistical analysis to obtain mission flight path accuracy. We have run over 50 test runs with the Tello UAV. The overall residual average deviation value over all runs was 0.10 meters (with UWB sensor data variation accounted for), RMSE was 0.14 meters and the deviation of the final position was 0.15833 meters. Next, our algorithms purposefully interrupted the flight path with an anomaly deviation to test the success rate of anomaly detection (100%) and rerouting (90%) towards the final destination. For safety, we implemented an emergency land keyboard interrupt in addition to safety barriers. With adjustment, this system can be applied to agriculture for crop dusting and irrigation, healthcare equipment like implantable biosensors & wearable devices, indoor navigation to increase warehouse productivity, rescue missions, crowd surveying, & environmental monitoring.
By providing users with low cost, user-friendly, adaptable technology, Project vBird holistically ensures incredible precision to increase UAV function & handle scenarios like disaster relief most effectively.

More about Jyoti:
Jyoti Rani is avidly shaping her role in society as an intellectual global community builder, entrepreneur, woman engineer, and scientist with incredible passion driven by compassion. 
Jyoti is passionate about quantum physics, data science, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, philosophy, & spirituality. She loves to sing Indian classical music, and sketch and paint acrylic in her free time.
Currently, Jyoti also serves as:
-Founder and Co-President of Code 4 Tomorrow, a 501c(3) STEM empowerment nonprofit
-Founder & President of The Career Connecting Club Network at her high school, founding Robotics & Coding Club and uniting the other STEM clubs on campus
-Founder & CEO of an online educational empowerment app platform ShareStuff.

 

 
To Celebrate India’s 74th Independence day and to promote scientific and engineering temper, ASEI Silicon Valley hosted the Budding Engineer Talent Showcase on August 15th, 2020
 
Hosted by Laxmi Patil on behalf of the Silicon Valley chapter, the event featured three keynote speakers and 10  High School Students -  all of them  winners of science competitions who were  excited to compete in the pitchfest.
 
Kicking off the event with a message of hope  in the face of the ongoing pandemic, ASEI Silicon Valley President  Piyush Malik made a case for not letting this crisis go to waste by  adopting RBI -  Reflecting,  building and innovating. He advocated for maintaining positive outlook despite the current environment by having
- hope from the young budding engineers;
- hope from the emerging advanced technologies and finally
- hope for finding a vaccine and cure for COVID-19.
 
The participants had been provided a framework for presentations /demos and it was an exciting morning full of succession of engineering projects in a rapidfire manner . 
 
We saw an abundance of application of emerging technologies like IoT, BioMedical Engineering and Software incorporating Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning techniques to human and societal problems.  
 
All the invited participants were inducted into the ASEI as student members for 2020.
 

 


Ojas Karnavat “Designing a public alert system that provides available exit routes when fire is detected in an enterprise facility”


Divya Venkataraman “Picture Perfect Diet: An app to classify food products, with OCR, for recommending substitutes based on a chosen diet “


Nidhi Mathihalli “An Application to help the Visually Impaired read Money using AI/Machine Learning”


Samarth Girish “Chill Pill: An AI Based Mobile Application to Detect Counterfeit Medication”


Sachin Iyer “ Determining the Viability of Cell-Compatible Organic Stents Using Bio-Printing”


Ariya Dattamajumdar (Invited but did not present) “Fires from Space: A robust synthetic control method and robotic system for wildfire management “




Isha Jagadish “ Improving Awareness of the Visually Impaired with a Wearable Device Using Computer Vision, AI, and a Voice-Driven App”


Anusha Ghosh “Translation of American Sign Language Through the Use of Computer Vision “


Jyoti Rani : A Novel Extreme Precision approach to UAV Autonomous delivery implementing Ultra-Wideband Width Tracking (UWB)




Adarsh Ambati “Contactless, Vital Signs Monitor using PhotoPlethysmographic Imaging, InfraredSensing Techniques, & Computer Vision“


Aditya Indla* : Custom Farm Survey Model based on SSD with Inception V2 and AI-Driven Harvesting Robot for Efficient Strawberry Farming


Achintya Sanjay :(Did not Present)


 
While Ariya and Achintya could not be present at this event, ASEI remains committed to including them in the Cohort 2020 of student members with the  hope they will join hands with the budding engineering community. 
 
*A special note about the "wildcard entry”  for  Aditya Indla in this pitchfest. His  Robotic Fruit picker entry  was selected for State level Science fair which unfortunately got cancelled due to the pandemic. However he did not let his creative energy and talent go to waste. He collaborated with the maker organization and during the initial stages of COVID-19 when we were facing shortage of personal protective equipment, he mobilized his resources, connections, demonstrated resourcefulness  and put energy to not only raise funds for pandemic relief but also 3D printed over 1000 face shields and masks to be distributed to health care workers in our Bay area  community . His efforts got him recognized as a Community Hero in the Bay Area and also Globally  recognized by United Nations Secretary General's  Envoy for the youth and ASEI SV chapter has  recommended Aditya  for induction  into the ranks of  ASEI members.
 
The event concluded by presentations from two of our Industry Speakers. Mr Puneet Dixit, Program Director at HCL Technologies spoke about Intelligent Automation covering RPA and digital transformation. Dr Jyoti Sharma from Verizon concluded by enlightening the audience with her experiences in Edge Computing and 5G Wireless technologies.
 
It was heartening to see that the majority of the contestants were women. Overall, a very well attended event, it  kept the audience engaged till the end of almost 2 hours. The student pitches were excellent and the budding engineers made the job of judges very tough. Stay tuned for our next announcement which will reveal the winner of this engineering pitchfest.

by Ajay P. Kothari - Monday, May 11, 2020
 
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Josh Rogin argued for the need for a strong American response to China’s perceived mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic: “Americans in both parties increasingly agree that the United States needs a tougher, more realistic China strategy that depends less on the honesty and goodwill of the Chinese government.” Such a strategy should include space, too.
 
The response to the coronavirus will have long-term impacts on NASA. With trillions of dollars spent so far, budget cuts for all agencies can be expected in the next fiscal year and beyond. NASA will be among the agencies affected more adversely than others, given they are not considered to be essential. Democratic lawmakers, but also many Republican ones, will oppose any increase sought for the agency. The Moon has, in this since, moved further away. How do we fix this problem?
 
Antagonism towards China by the public, and hence lawmakers, combined with the threat of budget cuts, points to a potential and necessary path. For NASA, it may likely not be budget cuts, but almost surely any budget increase will face the axe.
 
China’s activities in space are not just for economic or military superiority, though they may be a side effect, with even higher probability of that now. They are also doing it for civilizational pride, which morphs into national pride. It is very strong. The motivating factors in the near future will not be just financial. China’s pride has been hurt by the pandemic, so they will do the things to rejuvenate it. The Chinese feel that they were an exceptional civilization for a long time. They want that again and understandably so. It is nationalism, not communism. They need a face-saving mechanism badly and space is one of them. Space exploration for China, and other old civilizations like India, beckons of otherworldly qualities. It overlaps with science and the spirit of exploring. We need to understand that, and not try to reduce everything to economic numbers.
 
Despite these recent horrendous stumbles, they will have humans on the Moon in as little as five to seven years. And it will not be for any other reason than to start to “win” in space. They may well be the first to extract water from the Moon. It is not a space race as a military competition this time around, but will devolve into an egoistic and economic one—a “space race” nonetheless.
 
This is why going to the lunar surface, not the lunar Gateway, is very important for the United States. This time, of course, it’s not just to visit, or even just to stay. That is not enough. It is to do things there, and those high priority things to do are on the surface, not in orbit.
 
This also implies we not only will need to be there in large numbers but also quickly, in order to compete or to reach a favorable distribution. Those at the table write the rules. All of the above means we need a solution that can take thousands of tons, not hundreds, of infrastructure and other materials to the lunar surface.
 
NASA is doing the right thing by exploring options for the Human Landing Systems through contracts announced recently. While doing that, though, we need to also find ways to efficiently send needed infrastructure to the surface first, in some format that does not rely on the lunar Gateway to get the task done. It needs to be done over next few years, with the habitats and other infrastructure, including for in-situ resource utilization, awaiting the astronauts’ arrival.
 
This problem cannot be solved by just the Space Launch System. It is five to eight times more costly than the approaches I’ve discussed here previously (see “A giant leap for America”, The Space Review, November 20, 2017; and “How to make an urgent and affordable return to the Moon”, The Space Review, October 14, 2019), and is expected to have much less frequent launch capability. We will need five to ten launches a year of this type to take the requisite infrastructure and material to the lunar surface. Going to Mars using this method is also faster, and it can be done in four years. And later, using in-situ water ice from the lunar surface with gravity assist would be an attractive choice as well. The SLS program needs to be readdressed to design and produce the upper stages for different destinations using different (possibly methane and hydrogen) fuels and different payload sizes, along with other exploration concepts and hardware.
 
Just letting the space companies take over will also miss one important mark. For the public to feel the pride, as they did during Apollo, they have to feel that they did it, that we did it, that NASA largely did it. NASA needs to devise ways where businesses participate, but where the public feels proud and not just the owners of those companies.
 
While continuing science, NASA should do those things now that speak towards this potential competition with China in the human exploration arena. It may be or surely will be a space race, a competition for lunar resources, including water ice, that we do not wish China to get a controlling interest in. Lawmakers will be in mood to listen to that, rather than spend billions for relatively more cosmetic endeavors like the lunar Gateway. If we concentrate on the lunar Gateway, we will miss the bus and then it will be too late: another easy win for China. We cannot allow that.
 
NASA should postpone the lunar Gateway for now, concentrate fully on getting to the lunar surface anyway we can—not that it has to be SLS or bust, especially now that its first launch has again slipped to mid to late 2021. We can get to the surface using reusable boosters like Falcon Heavy, New Glenn, or Starship, at a fifth the cost of SLS, as well as be quicker and scalable. It will require some modifications, some prodding, and some out-of-the-box thinking that I am sure NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate can do under the new leadership it has now. Congress will like it too—surely with grumblings from some, although others will secretly and not-so-secretly applaud it. I believe the Trump Administration will also be quite welcoming of it. The paradigm has shifted greatly in last few months. We can wait for several months to make these changes, but we absolutely cannot afford to wait for years.
 
NASA’s Plan for Sustained Lunar Exploration and Development released on April 3 is very well thought out, but I am afraid the lunar Gateway reliance would be hindering. It needs to be flipped, with trying to concentrate on it after five years instead of before. That we need to beat China and stay several steps ahead is now a much more convincing argument to Congress, and correctly so. NASA should utilize this mindset while the iron is hot. Asking Congress for billions for the Gateway is just not going to fly. Using the unnecessarily costlier SLS will also not be favorably rewarded. But competing strongly with China will be. Upsetting Boeing and Lockheed Martin is minor compared to the whole country being upset by China as has happened now, and may again in future.
 
Dr. Ajay Kothari is founder/president of Astrox Corporation. His MS and PhD in Aerospace Engineering are from the University of Maryland.

Health Alert - U.S. Mission to IndiaLocation:  India
Event:  We advise U.S. persons interested in returning to the United States that Air India has announced additional commercially operated evacuation flights departing from India to international destinations, including the United States, to evacuate stranded Indian citizens.  U.S. persons are eligible to travel on these flights.  We understand from an update Air India posted recently on social media that the flights to the United States will depart on June 5 and 6.  Tickets for the flights will be available for purchase on the Air India website the morning of Saturday, May 30.  Interested travelers should contact Air India directly regarding these flights, not the U.S. Embassy or consulates.  
There are no further U.S. government charter flights scheduled or planned to evacuate U.S. persons from India at this time.  We urge U.S. persons wishing to return to the United States to strongly consider available commercial flight options.
Actions to Take:

Enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program.
Consult the CDC website for the most up-to-date information on COVID-19.
Visit our Embassy webpage on COVID-19 for information on conditions in India.
Visit the Department of Homeland Security's website for the latest travel restrictions affecting travel to the United States.
Review the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare website for information on COVID-19 and Indian travel advisories.

 Assistance:
·         U.S. Embassy New Delhi
Shanti Path, Chanakyapuri 110021
telephone: +91-11-2419-8000
https://in.usembassy.gov
·     U.S. Consulate General Mumbai (Bombay)
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telephone: +91-22-2672-4000
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With the rise of Artificial Intelligence in recent years, disrupting almost every industry it touches is inevitable. Rise of “new collar" jobs requiring skills and not degrees'' has been evident since the past couple of years. Leaders who are in tune with social trends know very well that we need to prepare citizens and youth for job descriptions that have not yet been defined. Means of doing everything better is continually being explored and with traditional jobs being threatened, the “future of work” has been a common theme of discussions in corporate circles. Over the past few years there was already a debate about the efficacy of our K-12 and college education system and how “flipping the classroom” would challenge the traditional expensive college education system.
 
And then COVID-19 struck the world. Major economies and life itself seemed to come to a standstill. However, thanks to the internet and advancement in Education Technologies, while maintaining social distancing, students were able to stay at home and get connected to their schools and teachers virtually. Work from Home (WFH) became the norm rather than a desirable perk. In such a transformed word, acceleration of digital transformation of all industries is happening rapidly and we are now living in a world that has to deal with everything being reimagined. Including Education.
 
Education technology (EdTech) is a term we use to describe the industry that combines education and technological advances, revolutionizing the conventional landscape of education. EdTech not only allows educational institutions to serve a larger and more diverse audience, but also enables educational participants, both teachers and students, to foster relationships in an interactive fashion.
 
As you can appreciate, EdTech solutions have been becoming part of our everyday lives whether you are a student, parent, educator or knowledge worker in the industry or a professional from any field who is keen on keeping their skills up-to date.
 
In our “Getting Real with Engineering” series of virtual events, ASEI brings together domain experts and we discuss things from an engineering mindset. This time we decided to focus on Education Technology and conducted a webinar with 3 panelists representing different perspectives of education technology Academics, Technology, Venture Capital and Business. This post provides a bird’s eye view of what transpired when Amrish Chopra and Piyush Malik hosted Dr Preetha Ram, Rohit Chhabra and Narendra Shankar.
 
First, we had, Dr. Preetha Ram, who previously was an educator and dean of Emory university and went on to start an education technology startup which had a successful exit a few years ago. She is currently working for Pier 70 ventures and investing in the next generation of educational technology companies. Dr. Ram defined the current state of affairs at universities whereby universities and colleges with low endowment and low ranking may not survive the current crisis of low or no enrollment due to COVID-19 pandemic. This crisis now provides us with an opportunity for disruptive innovation in the academic field. New technologies will be used for educating students such as AR/VR immersive learning, using AI and adaptive learning to tailor education to specific students. With several universities going online, we may also see partnership’s with big tech companies and educational institutions.
 
Next we had Rohit Chhabra who is Vice President of educational technology operations at Zovio which runs an online-only university called Ashford University. Ashford University offers associate's, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in more than 50 areas. Rohit’s view from an already established online university which is already supporting 20,000 plus students. Rohit talked about the challenges in running an online university from a student as well as schools’ point of view. From students’ viewpoint some challenges were: adapting to online learning, keeping motivated, finding the right school, etc. From the school's point of view, it is challenging to convert a regular course to an online course, train faculty, technology help desk for teacher and class and define the value proposition for online education. Given all this there are opportunities available for providing better online education. Some areas were providing better learning and collaboration tools, assessment automation, target course work for individual needs, etc. Finally, Rohit talked about increase in online enrollment numbers as students look for university’s having online presence as it provides them the flexibility.
 
Our third panelist, Narendra Shankar is currently the global head of business at Udacity - an educational startup ‘unicorn” providing focused education and skill training for students. Narendra talked about how there will be increased loss of jobs due to automation and still companies are saying that talent shortage is their number one risk.
 
Narendra talked about how they have built a new type of degree, called NanoDegree, which provides practical and specific skill training for less cost than the Universities program. All education is done online. Udacity delivers their educational material by providing an immersive curriculum with support from mentors and real-world projects. Narendra mentioned that traditional universities are working with Udacity to provide more of a blended experience for students.
 
Key Take Aways:
 
Some key takeaways from the panel discussion and audience questions that ensued:
 
Current educational system is ripe for disruption and COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the process
 
Low ranking and low endowment universities will have to adapt to new technology or become defunct
 
Future of education is more and more online with traditional universities partnering with technology companies to provide education. Google-Stanford University anyone?
 
Traditional University may be replaced or supplemented with online degrees (such as NanoDegree.)
 
There are a number of opportunities for technologists and engineers to take the education Industry to the next level . Some areas are Augmented Reality, Blockchain, Assessment of exams, etc.
 
Overall this session was full of ideas and thoughts on current and future of educational technology and opportunities for engineers. The future of EdTech in a Post COVID word seems promising. Some PreCovid era projections placed the US Ed Tech market at nearly $50 Billion by the end of 2020 growing at 9% year over year but now it will grow much rapidly. Schools, businesses, parents and individuals, everyone wants to be part of the EdTech evolution- why would anyone not want to capitalize? If you would like to know further, watch the video and get in touch for more info.The Video for this session is being posted for the ASEI members here.
 

 
With the rise of Artificial Intelligence in recent years, disrupting almost every industry it touches is inevitable.  Rise of “new collar" jobs requiring skills and not degrees'' has been evident since the past couple of years. Leaders who are in tune with social trends know very well that we need to prepare citizens and youth for job descriptions that have not yet been defined.  Means of doing everything better is continually  being explored and with  traditional jobs being threatened, the “future of work” has been a common theme of discussions in corporate circles. 
Over the past few years there was already a debate about the efficacy of our K-12 and college education system and how “flipping the classroom” would challenge  the traditional expensive college education system.  
 
And then COVID-19 struck the world. 
Major economies and life itself seemed to come to a standstill.  However, thanks to the internet and advancement in Education Technologies, while maintaining social distancing, students were able to stay at home and get connected to their schools and teachers virtually.  Work from Home (WFH)  became the norm rather than a desirable perk. In such a transformed word, acceleration of digital  transformation of all industries is happening rapidly  and we are now living in a world that has to deal with everything being reimagined. Including Education.
 
Education technology (EdTech) is a term we use to describe the industry that combines education and technological advances, revolutionizing the conventional landscape of education. EdTech not only allows educational institutions to serve a larger and more diverse audience, but also enables educational participants, both teachers and students, to foster relationships in an interactive fashion. 
As you can appreciate, EdTech solutions have been  becoming part of our everyday lives whether you are a student, parent, educator or knowledge worker  in the industry or a professional from any field who is keen on keeping their skills up-to date . 
In our “Getting Real with Engineering” series of virtual events, ASEI  brings together domain experts and we discuss things from an engineering mindset.  This time we decided to focus on Education Technology and conducted  a webinar with 3 panelists representing  different perspectives  of education technology Academics, Technology, Venture Capital  and Business. This post  provides a bird’s eye view of what transpired when Amrish Chopra and Piyush Malik hosted Dr Preetha Ram, Rohit Chhabra and Narendra Shankar.
First, we had, Dr. Preetha Ram, who previously was an educator and dean of Emory university and went on to start an education technology startup which had a successful exit a few years ago. She is currently working for Pier 70 ventures and investing in the next generation of educational technology companies. Dr. Ram defined the current state of affairs at  universities whereby universities and colleges with low endowment and low ranking may not survive the current crisis of low or no enrollment due to COVID-19 pandemic. This crisis now provides us with an opportunity for disruptive innovation in the academic field. New technologies will be used for educating students such as AR/VR immersive learning, using AI and adaptive learning to tailor education to specific students. With several universities going online, we may also see partnership’s with big tech companies and educational institutions.

Next we had Rohit Chhabra who is Vice President of educational technology operations at Zovio which runs an online-only university called Ashford University. Ashford University offers associate's, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in more than 50 areas. Rohit’s view from an already established online university which is already supporting 20,000 plus students. Rohit talked about the challenges in running an online university from a student as well as schools’ point of view. From students’ viewpoint some challenges were: adapting to online learning, keeping motivated, finding the right school, etc. From the school's point of view, it is challenging to convert a regular course to an online course, train faculty, technology help desk for teacher and class and define the value proposition for online education. Given all this there are opportunities available for providing better online education. Some areas were providing better learning and collaboration tools, assessment automation, target course work for individual needs, etc. Finally, Rohit talked about increase in online  enrollment numbers as students look for university’s having online presence as it provides them the flexibility.
 
Our third panelist, Narendra Shankar is currently the global head of business at Udacity - an educational startup ‘unicorn” providing focused education and skill training for students. Narendra talked about how there will be increased loss of jobs due to automation and still companies are saying that talent shortage is their number one risk. Narendra talked about how they have built a new type of degree, called NanoDegree, which provides practical and specific skill training for less cost than the Universities program. All education is done online. Udacity delivers their educational material by providing an immersive curriculum with support from mentors and real-world projects. Narendra mentioned that traditional universities are working with Udacity to provide more of a blended experience for students.
.  
Key Take Aways:
Some key takeaways from the panel discussion and audience questions that ensued :


Current educational system is ripe for disruption and COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the process


Low ranking and low endowment universities will have to adapt to new technology or become defunct


Future of education is more and more online with traditional universities partnering with technology companies to provide education. Google-Stanford University anyone?


Traditional University may be replaced or supplemented with online degrees (such as NanoDegree.)


There are a number of opportunities for technologists and engineers to take the education Industry  to the next level . Some areas are Augmented Reality, Blockchain, Assessment of exams, etc.


 
Overall this session was full of  ideas and thoughts on current and future of educational technology and opportunities for  engineers. The future of EdTech in a Post COVID word seems  promising. Some PreCovid era  projections placed the US Ed Tech market at nearly $50 Billion by the end of 2020 growing at 9% year over year but now it will grow much  rapidly.  Schools, businesses, parents and individuals, everyone wants to be part of the EdTech evolution- why would anyone not want to capitalize? If you would like to know further, watch the video and get in touch for more info.The Video for this session is being posted for the ASEI members here.

Education is a great equalizer and thanks to internet and advanced technologies, we now have the ability to get educated from anywhere in the world especially in the current #covid19 era.The EdTech market size has been expanding at rates ranging from 8.3% to 9.28%. Earlier projections placed the US market at nearly $50 Billion by end of 2020 as compared to $43 billion in 2019 and $39.33 billion in 2018.There are learning solutions for literally everyone. Schools, businesses, parents and individuals, everyone wants to be part of the EdTech evolution!Coursera and Khan Academy were early trailblazers but where is the EdTech industry now headed?ASEI Silicon Valley Chapter is Looking forward to hosting and moderating  perspectives and debate amongst three #edtech experts on future trends in a Post COVID Era: Dr Preetha Ram (Formerly an Edtech CEO, Academic, Dean of Emory University and a current VC) Rohit Chhabra Ed Tech Executive and Narendar Shankar an Executive from Udacity. #edtechchat ASEI Tech Talks hosted by Amrish Chopra ASEI Silicon Valley 

Learnings and KTAs
Hope each of you reading this is staying healthy and safe. In case you missed our live session with Healthcare Innovators, here is a brief summary of our recent event.
Facilitated by Santosh Ankola, Head of Product at Techcrunch and Piyush Malik, President of ASEI Silicon Valley chapter, we opened up the discussion stating the obvious - The current COVID-19 pandemic is not the first one and certainly not the last one to hit us. Beset with high costs and convoluted workflows, it takes many years to find a cure and drug approvals for humans can take upto a decade. Last few decades has given all the necessary platforms in the form of Internet, Mobile, Big Data and Cloud. With technology advancement, more and more investors are investing into Health tech. But still, the majority population feels that Healthcare in the US is broken and given we had an expert from UK as well as US, we got to hear from both their points of view.
Our medical expert, Dr Sriram Iyer is a senior Respiratory & Sleep Physician based in Liverpool, UK. He works in one of the largest sleep disorder centers in England. He is currently providing expertise at the forefront of the National Health Service COVID-19 response in Northwest England. He has previously held senior management and education roles in the NHS and was a visiting sleep consultant at the Univ of British Columbia Hospital in Vancouver.He has a sub-specialist interest in lung cancer, pleural disease and sleep disorders and is published extensively in these fields. He is also the Director/Founder of a private sleep health company, Sleep Vitality, which provides expertise in management of sleep disorders. He is a sleep expert for the Welsh Rugby Union.He qualified as a doctor in Bangalore and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. He holds a creative writing certificate from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver). During our discussion, Dr Iyer described how he is spending long hours at his hospital in serving COVID patients and emphasized how technology companies are coming up with ventilators and also how Personal Protective equipment (PPE) are important. Given the current situation, the demand of PPE is huge.
Our other panelist Dilip Goswami is an engineer - inventor - entrepreneur cum CEO who shared the story behind his own challenges with respiratory problems as a young child that inspired his father Dr Yogi Goswami to develop the PECA technology behind Molekule , the company that he runs along with his Co-CEO dad. Together with Dr. Goswami and his sister, Jaya, Dilip co-founded Molekule to commercialize this life-changing technology. Dilip previously served as VP of Technology at Advanced Technologies & Testing Laboratories where he led research & development. He holds an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Florida. Dileep shared how his startup has recently raised money ($38M Series C ) from venture capitalists to expand and then dived into the funding aspects for healthcare industry in general. Future of funding for healthcare looks really promising. Big plus point with US is the funding available from various pools. However, there are challenges with the venture funding due to limited partners pulling back. Also there are several challenges with the matching funding for the people that really need it. Smaller hospitals find it hard to find funding to even get the PPEs and ventilators. Dr Iyer emphasized on the major economic recession that will follow this pandemic. It remains to be seen how the funding will flow into research and development activities. The healthcare systems are so different globally. Scary as it sounds, Corona iterations are going to repeat over next several months and we need to be prepared to handle it. But with smart healthcare systems, things should be easier to learn and emerge to face such outbursts will be handled better. Best example is South Korea where the Corona outbreak was handled very well (proximity checking) due to their previous experience. Taking questions from the audience, moderator and facilitator steered the conversation away from the current situation to life sciences and healthcare industry trends and future direction. The discussion then moved on to care and prevention of diseases in general. Telehealth options have been in US for a while now, however it is picking up well as no one wants to go to hospital in person for obvious reasons. However, monitoring patients at home can have its own challenges considering the safety and also to monitor the deteriorating patients closely. Healthcare startups are seeing lot of benefits both ways and this is another area which can expand and benefit everyone in the future. Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR) and Artificial Intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) will drive the future of health care which will help with more advance treatments as well as preventative measures such as more accurate cancer screening etc. With these technologies, screening can be easily accelerated and early detection can become a reality.
In conclusion, the key take aways were :
1)Ensure not to get affected by inaccurate news on social media. Focus should not be on how many people died. Very important not to panic based on what is out there on social media.
2) Majority of the people who get infected by Corona will have mild symptoms.
3) Focus for everyone should be on the basic things that are already known: Hand hygiene, social distancing, personal protective equipment (PPE). Also this is evolving space and we are all learning together. Keep current on the information from the valid authorities!! Be vigilant on where you are sourcing the information from
4) How this pandemic shapes the future of Healthtech and its advancement will be an interesting topic to pay attention to and many opportunities for innovation will emerge. This could be the catalyst that is required to catapult healthtech.
Smart inhalers, robotic surgery, wireless brain sensors, artificial organs, 3-D printing, telehealth are just a few of the major advancements in the recent years. However, we are still in the early innings in the advancement and utilizing technology in the Health industry. We thank the army of doctors and nurses along with healthcare innovators at the forefront of dealing with the existential crisis and firmly believe we will emerge from the current crisis much stronger.
 
The video recording of the event is available for ASEI members here.

ASEI Silicon Valley continues its STEM program for fifth year in a row by sponsoring top three awards for each high school grade 9th through 12th at the 2020 Santa Clara county science fair (aka Synopsys Championship).This year due to the COVID-19 social distancing advisory and for abundance of caution towards the health and safety of all, this event was adapted from a traditional in-person interaction to a digital format. Selecting twelve promising projects from over 1000 entries was not easy but thanks to ASEI silicon valley board members and volunteers the excellent work of students was recognized. We saw an abundance of application of emerging technologies like IoT, BioMedical Engineering and Software incorporating Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning techniques to human problems. Special thanks to 3rd time repeat judge Rakesh Guliani and our new volunteer Lakshmi Patil for lending a helping hand with this program this year.

Here's the list of winning projects:

9th Grade Winners

Divya Venkataraman “Picture Perfect Diet: An app to classify food products, with OCR, for recommending substitutes based on a chosen diet “

Nidhi Mathihalli “An Application to help the Visually Impaired read Money using AI/Machine Learning”

Isha Jagadish “ Improving Awareness of the Visually Impaired with a Wearable Device Using Computer Vision, AI, and a Voice-Driven App”

Grade 10 winners

Adarsh Ambati “Contactless, Vital Signs Monitor using PhotoPlethysmographic Imaging, InfraredSensing Techniques, & Computer Vision“

Ria Sinha “Machine Learning Based Digital Assistant for the Deaf “

Ojas Karnavat “Designing a public alert system that provides available exit routes when fire is detected in an enterprise facility”


Grade 11 winners

Samarth Girish “Chill Pill: An AI Based Mobile Application to Detect Counterfeit Medication “

Dhruv Jatkar & Achintya Sanjay & Sachin Iyer “ Determining the Viability of Cell-Compatible Organic Stents Using Bio-Printing”

Dinesh Thirumavalavan “Using a convolution LSTM-based deep neural network to accurately identify and
classify hate speech on Twitter”

12th Grade Winners

Pranav Kakhandiki “Determining Organ Degeneration using Bio-Terminal Polarity “

Anusha Ghosh “Translation of American Sign Language Through the Use of Computer Vision “

Aryia Dattamajumdar “Fires from Space: A robust synthetic control method and robotic system for wildfire management “


On behalf of the ASEI BOD, we congratulate and wish each of these bright young minds a very successful career in science and technology and look forward to their contributions to industry and society in the future.

Healthcare in the US is broken. The current COVID-19 Pandemic is not the first one and certainly not the last one to hit us. Beset with high costs and convoluted workflows, it takes many years to find a cure and drug approvals for humans can take upto a decade. Last few decades has given all the necessary platforms in the form of Internet, Mobile, Big Data and Cloud. With technology advancement, more and more investors are investing into Health tech.

Smart inhalers, robotic surgery, wireless brain sensors, artificial organs, 3-D printing, telehealth are just a few of the major advancements in the recent years. However, we are still in the early innings in the advancement and utilizing technology in the Health industry.

As we were hopeful to see the next version of Healthtech and benefits to society, the world economy has come to a standstill because of a pandemic. How will this pandemic shape the future of healthtech and its advancement? Will this be the catalyst that is required to catapult healthtech or will the slowdown in the economy stop the healthtech juggernaut in its stride?


ASEI Silicon Valley Chapter will be hosting a panel discussion next week (April 20th, 2020) with HLS experts and innovators in conversation moderated by Santosh Ankola, Head of Product at TechCrunch

Our distinguished speakers of this online session are
1) Dilip Goswami (Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Molekule)
Dilip’s chronic struggle with allergies and asthma issues from a young age inspired his father, Dr. Yogi Goswami, to develop the technology behind Molekule. Together with Dr. Goswami and his sister, Jaya, Dilip co-founded Molekule to commercialize this life-changing technology.

Dilip previously served as VP of Technology at Advanced Technologies & Testing Laboratories where he led research & development. He holds an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Florida.

2) Dr Sriram Iyer

Dr Sriram Iyer is a senior Respiratory & Sleep Physician based in Liverpool, UK. He works in one of the largest sleep disorder centers in England. He is currently providing expertise at the forefront of the National Health Service Covid-19 response in Northwest England.
He has previously held senior management and education roles in the NHS and was a visiting sleep consultant at the Univ of British Columbia Hospital in Vancouver.
He has a sub-specialist interest in lung cancer, pleural disease and sleep disorders and is published extensively in these fields.
He is also the Director/Founder of a private sleep health company, Sleep Vitality, which provides expertise in management of sleep disorders. He is a sleep expert for the Welsh Rugby Union.
He qualified as a doctor in Bangalore and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. He holds a creative writing certificate from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver).

In this session, we will focus on few major aspects of Health Tech:

Effect of Pandemic like Coronavirus
-More focus on Telehealth
-Better predictive models; Using Data effectively; IoT
-Economic impact and the effect on funding in future
-ML/AI - Large advancements in NLP, is this the time for computational chemistry

Challenges of using technology
-Training physicians with use of new technology
-Data privacy and security for patients and physicians affordability

Looking beyond the pandemic:
-Innovation Avenues in HLS
-Latest trends

Dear ASEI Members and Supporters,


During this unprecedented time, we want to make sure that you and your family are safe. Please follow the guidelines from appropriate Federal, State, and Local authorities. The effectiveness of Social Distancing is directly connected to full cooperation from everyone. We want to thank all the Healthcare professionals and the First Responders. They are doing everything possible to help anyone who is infected by the COVID-19.

For the safety of our ASEI members and supporters, we have decided not to hold any face-to-face meetings until further notice. We will leverage webinars and other online connectivity options to serve our membership.
Please visit our website www.aseiusa.org for the latest updates and announcements.

Stay Home. Stay Safe. Save Lives.

Best regards,
Jwalant Lakhia, Bhavesh Joshi, Rakesh Patel, and Ashok Madan on behalf of the ASEI National Board