Mysuru: Sandeep Rao, a Class 11 student of Excel Public School, Mysuru, has won a Top Prize in the International Boost Innovation Challenge-2017 hosted by Swedish companies MYoroface and Fiber Optic Valley recently.

The participants were asked to present a document listing their proposed solution to digitise the company’s product — ‘IQoro’. The device developed by MYoroface, a Swedish giant in medical technology manufacturer arena addresses the difficulties faced by people suffering from Dysphagia — a condition that causes excessive snoring ultimately resulting in a swallowing disorder.

‘IQoro’, a non-invasive neuromuscular device is used in the form of a daily exercise routine to reduce the severity of symptoms and allowing for better quality of sleep and rest.

Sandeep’s submission consisted of not only a clear document explaining how he proposed to digitise their product with the help of recurrent neural networks and a sensor-integrated system to capture data, but also created and included algorithms, circuit diagrams, 3D designs, and business models to deploy the product into the market which truly made it an end-to-end solution.

His solution was selected as the winner among several thousands of other submissions across the world and was awarded a cash prize of 2500 euros (Rs.1,89,367).

An article published on Fiber Optic Valley’s website and newsletter features Sandeep’s interview after having been announced as the winner of the challenge in November.

Sandeep is the son of Ashok Rao ad Deepika Rao, residents of Kuvempunagar in city.

GripTape Challenge-2017

GripTape, a US based organisation funds a highly competitive and selective programme called the ‘GripTape Challenge’ that facilitates independent research projects created and conducted for high school students from around the world.

Sandeep has the honour of becoming one of GripTape’s first international scholars by the merit of his project proposal being one of the few selected in November this year and has been given a grant of 500 dollars (Rs. 32,062.50) to further work on his project in the field of medicine.

His proposal is to create an integrated online platform for patients to find doctors most suited for their health condition which will be analysed using comprehensive algorithms.