We are a team of three students from IIM Lucknow trying to tackle global warming along with conserving natural resources. As socially minded people from diverse backgrounds, we decided to use our experience and the resources available to us to help solve one of the most significant problems facing India right now via our idea of providing an easy-to-use cost-benefit analysis service of installing solar panels and rainwater harvesting. We need your help to take our idea to the Hult Prize Bangkok Regional Finals and have a shot at $1 Million seed funding!  

“Exhaustion of Natural resources” is a very commonly used phrase, but still hardly people even ponder in what terms they can mitigate such a looming threat.

One fine morning in the month of May, we were juggling to catch our bus directed towards our hometown, when suddenly our eyes got a glimpse of dozens of men standing in queue outside the state electric office complaining about the power cut in their locality for more than 24 hours and how their life was paralyzed in the very aspect that they were not able to complete their day to day activities. After travelling to certain distance via bus our eyes skimmed through group of married women standing in front of PWD tanker and fighting for filling their water buckets.

These heart wrenching stories depict the life of a common man living in suburban areas and having to face the problem of exhaustion of natural resources.
One of our co-passengers in the bus looking at this series of events, commented “Kya bhaiya itna problem he in log ko toh pehle paani baccha lena chhahiya na”. This was our eureka moment, when we realized that people were not aware of the benefits they can ripe by applying proper measures to conserve natural resources.

From that nascent stage of idea generation, to turning the idea into reality by building an app which could to some extent help people deal with this ever increasing crisis, we as a group are determined that our app could help save millions of people who are dying because of water scarcity as well as those lower middle class millennials who have to burn their savings in order to get access to all these basic needs.

Our solution

Due to indiscriminate usage of fossil fuels, earth has already become 10oc hotter since 1950s and 45% of all farmer suicides globally happen due to lack of water. Amidst this crisis, renewable sources of energy like water harvesting and solar energy should see the light of the day.
 
Several Indian states have immense potential for roof top water harvesting and solar energy generation, but this potential remains vastly underutilized because people are usually unaware of the capacity of their roof-tops, the ideal number of solar panels to be installed as per the roof space, sun facing direction, temperature and the amount of sunlight falling on the roof or the rain received.
 
Our solution, Roof Inspect, would apply predictive forecasting and data analytics on OneAtlas database of AirBus to answer these questions for your roof once you feed your locality and mark the boundaries of your roof.
 
Users would get to know about the number of solar panels to be installed, no. of storage tanks required, cost of installation and the amount of savings users would achieve through this.
 
 With our mission of leveraging technology to conserve the environment, making the earth a better place, we aspire to create a positive impact with every dollar that we make.
 
Why the Hult Prize?

The Hult Prize has been called the “Nobel Prize for Students”, hosted by the Hult International Business School in collaboration with the Clinton Foundation. It has recently been named as one of the top five ideas changing the world by Times Magazine. The competition gives socially-minded for-profit entrepreneurs a shot at $1 Million in seed funding and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to present to President Bill Clinton. The Hult Prize, 2020 edition has issued a problem statement to create bold businesses for a better planet which generate positive impact on the environment with every sale, making it the ideal platform for us to pitch our venture and make a difference.
 
From over 300,000 entries, our team has been selected to participate in the Bangkok Summit of the Hult Prize Regional Finals. Passing through the regional rounds will give us the opportunity to go to the Hult Foundation incubator at Ashridge Castle, which has been the home of many incredible ventures such as Sweet Bites, Magic Bus and Tembo, all of which have driven positive change in society. The incubator will give us access to a gamut of resources and mentorship from the best in the world, helping us take our venture to the next level.
 
However, getting to Bangkok is not an easy task. While we are incredibly passionate about our venture, all of us come from middle-class families. Just the round trip tickets to Bangkok will set us back by INR 20,000 per person. We believe that the Hult Prize is the best platform to kickstart our venture and make a real impact on society in the long run and to reach there we need your assistance.