IISc Bangalore student invents 'LifeBox'

New Delhi: The national winners for the James Dyson Awards-2021, have been announced on Monday. The invention of LifeBox by Deval Karia from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore has been adjudicated as the national winner for this year's edition.

The project LifeBox has been developed with a vision to explore drones as a transport channel for organs. The inability to move hearts from donor to recipient quickly is a challenge that patients face in India. LifeBox tackles this problem with a system that extends the preservation time of the heart to allow for increased travel time and distances.

Deval Karia, the inventor of LifeBox, said "The project has its genesis in a course taught by Prof B Gurumoorthy, Prof A Ghosal at CPDM, with a vision to explore drones for organ transportation. However, we soon realised that without active preservation techniques, drones will not do much to improve the rate of heart transplants in India. This led to a shift in focus: A portable system that can extend the out-of-body viable time of the heart."

From a competitive pool of 77 entries evaluated by the jury led by Srijan Pal Singh, the CEO and Co-Founder of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Centre; LifeBox narrowly edged out the two runner-ups.

Safaa, an invention by Ananaya Singh and Vacha Patel, from the National Institute of Design, Haryana; and Diariase; invented by Nikhil Das from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad to emerge as the national runner-ups from India. Both the national winner and the runners-up; along with the 84 national finalists from 28 countries and regions will now proceed to the international stages of the competition.

Dyson engineers will create a Top 20 shortlist from these finalists. Sir James Dyson will then choose an International winner and two runners-up. The James Dyson Award runs in 28 countries and regions worldwide. Each national winner receives Rs 1.90 lakh cash prize. Whereas the International winner receives a prize of Rs 29 lakh plus Rs 4,80,000 for the winner's university. The sustainability winner receives a prize of Rs 29 lakh and two International runners-up receive Rs 4.80 lakh.