Protecting Deer by LEADer Mahalinga KS

LEADer Mahalinga KS from Veershaiva College Bellary realized that in his region, there was a critical situation of deer being killed.

First, he and his team collected data through qualitative measures such as asking neighbouring people, exploring the areas where deer are found, and speaking with forest officials. They also collected any quantitative measures they could find, such as population numbers. It was a challenge collecting the first-hand data, as this involved going to the forested areas when the deers live in the hot summer months.

They then took all this data and compiled it, and gave it to the forest office, local government, and local police so they would better understand the situation of deers being killed. They also wanted to make sure that not only the authorities knew, but the people knew about the issues as well. They went around to villagers to distribute information and pamphlets, attempting to change the village mindset about deer killing.

The team got a good response from the villagers and authorities when they shared the information. They feel positive that their project has had a positive impact in changing how the villagers think about the deers, thus reducing the amount of deer killed in the region.

Head-Controlled Computer Mouse by LEADer Shadab

LEADer Shadab from NTTF College Belur invented the "Head Mouse". Shadab reasoned that some people with developmental and locomotive disabilities cannot use their hands to operate a computer mouse. In this project, he developed a hands-free computer mouse that moves the cursor according to the movement of our head.

The clicks and double clicks are obtained by breadth inputs. It uses an accelerometer and gyroscope fixed in the mouse to track the movement of the users head with I2C communication. This data is then used by a onboard micro-controller to analyze the motion of the user. This then communicates the computer-wired (bluetooth)/ wirelessly (user preference) and moves the cursor via serial communication. The mouse uses a microphone to get users breath inputs in the form of blows to analyses the breath to be left click, right click, double click or scroll. The mouse then sends the cursor and click data to computer either via Bluetooth or via USB Cable.

Scientifically, head movements have 6 degrees of freedom. An accelerometer cannot alone track all the 6 degrees of freedom, but only is limited to 4 degrees of freedom. Coupling a gyroscope with it adds another 2 Degree of freedom. This realization overcame one of the major challenges Shadab faced in designing the head mouse.

While this project is still in developmental phase, it is a great example of combining skills learned in college with a social project that could have a big impact in the lives of others.

Helping Blind Students by LEADer Jyoti H

Some times blind students face problems in writing examinations because the examination board allows one person to attend the examination along with the blind candidate. But what happens if sometime the supporting member does not catch their sentences properly? It will effect their result.

LEADer Jyoti H from Jigular Women's College thought this to herself, and wanted to make a difference. She took permission from her hostel warden to teach economics (her degree) for the eight blind students who were studying the subject, to ensure they had the extra help and tutoring they needed.

Jyoti also realized that it was important to ensure the blind students had the right helper to transcribe their examination answers. Jyoti helped the students determine the good quality helpers, thus making the students feel more positive and interested to learn.

By assisting these students to do their best without treating them like they were less, Jyoti made a positive difference in the lives of her fellow students that had a visual impairment. 

Educational Trip for Poor Children by LEADer Saibindu and Shashidhar

Children getting off the bus in Hampi

Without any resources, destitute children lack to ability to explore and learn about the world around them. LEADers Saibindu and Shashidhar from Veerashaiva College wanted to give the opportunity to these children to do that which they would otherwise never get the chance.

Saibindu and Shashidhar took 42 children from the destitute children home in Bellari to the historical town and sites of Hampi. After getting permission from the home, teaching themselves all the key information about Hampi historical sites to teach to the students, they transported the students to Hampi in a bus they rented with funding from LEAD.

LEADers with some of the teachers
and children

This one-of-a-kind project made the children so happy and excited, all while learning about the different temples and ruins in Hampi and seeing the Hospet Dam. They were able to experience travelling to visit a very famous place, and the LEADers felt very proud that they were able to help the children forget about their poverty and sadness for even one day, and hopefully motivate them for future.

There were no doubt challenges, including receiving all the appropriate permissions as well as ensuring the safety of the children and getting tickets for the monuments for each one. However, the LEADers and children both thoroughly enjoyed the day and learned a lot.

Media coverage of the project

New Agricultural Techniques Awareness with LEADer Harish D

LEADer Harish D from Veershaiva College Bellary realized that there were many new agricultural machines, innovations, and subsidy programs, but without awareness, farmers were unable to take advantage of them. Harish took it upon himself to share this information with the farmers, and inspired his fellow leaders to join him in his awareness campaign.

Media coverage of the project

Harish conducting information
sessions for farmers

Harish and his team held information sessions in villages, 

spreading awareness to over 600 farmers in total. Not only did the team inform the farmers of the new techniques and programs, but encouraged and helped them to take advantage. With the help of Harish and his team, 7 farmers (with help from 45 others) received a commercial loan to purchase new innovative farming equipment, in which the farmers received a discount of 14 lacs on the equipment. In total, 50 farmers benefitted from this new equipment. Another farmer, with information from Harish, purchased 2 buffalo and one cow to improve his farming. 

One challenge for the group was to gather the farmers in one place to do the information session. They know it would take significant time to share the information door-to-door, so with the help of a few local people, the team went around to invite the farmers to a central location. Harish also found it challenging to convince the bank to offer low-interest loans to the farmers. Many of the farmers had limited history with banking, and therefore both the banks and farmers were hesitant.

Harish and team receiving award at
 Yuva Summit 2016

For this project, Harish won a Best Leader Award at Yuva Summit 2016, receiving it onstage in front of a crowd of over 4000 from Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus. John Deere Bellary also appreciated Harish for his work getting their innovative equipment to the farmers who need it most. 

LEAD Valedictory 2016 - Hubballi

The event started with a showcase of 50+
of the best projects from the year

LEAD Hubballi celebrated the accomplishments of LEAD 8 in their Valedictory ceremony on 20th April, 2016 with the theme "Recognizing the Unrecognized".

Guests of honour watering the plants for inauguration

The guests of honour, Mr Laxman Uppar (Director, Classic KAS & IAS Study Circle), Mr. Rupam Das (Hubballi Area Director, Clarks Inn Group of Hotels), Sister Erminia (Our Lady of Lourdes German Hospital, Dharwad), and Mr. Naveen Jha (CEO, Deshpande Foundation) presided over the celebration. The event was attended by more than 250 LEADers, students, and faculty from the locations of Hubballi, Dharwad, Haliyal, Sirsi, Hulkoti, and Ballari.

Many LEAD students were awarded for their accomplishments this year (see full list below).

Manjunath Gogi from KLEIT Hubballi won Most Promising LEADer for his dedication and work in his project TALAASH, a competition for technical ideas to win seed funding and startup mentorship, now in its third year. You can read more about Manjunath's story here.

AKSF Fellowship winning Best Team

Kush from NTTP Dharwad receiving
Best Innovative Idea from Mr. Laxman Uppar

Valedictory is also the mark to start preparing for the coming year. Harish Gadgin for KLEIT Hubballi was promoted to LEAD Ambassador, the highest LEADer level and a great accomplishment, and 17 LEADers were promoted to Master LEADer in order to start their journey in promoting LEAD throughout their colleges and helping to unleash the leadership potential in those students around them.

Best Awareness Project: "Career guidance program"by Varadh Kulkarni, Veerashaiva College Ballari

Best Adult Education Project: "Darkness to Bright Future" by Jyoti Hanagi, Jigulur Womens College Dharwad

Best Children's Education Project: "Destitute Children Hampi Trip" by Saibindu & Shashi, Veerashaiva College Ballari

Most Initiatives Taken: Sardharganesh H V, Veerashaiva College Ballari

Most Creative Project: "Canteen Renovation" by Raghavendra & Shushant, KCD Dharwad

Best Community Project: "Painting Road Breaks and Bus Stand" by Sampath & Abhishek, GFGC Kalghatagi

Best Innovative Idea: "Head Mouse" by Kush, NTTF Dharwad

Most Promising LEADer: Manjunath Gogi, KLEIT Hubballi

Best Fundraiser: "Help the Needy", Veerashaiva College Ballari

Best Team: "Wearing Helmets Saves Lives", AKSF Fellowship Hubballi

My Story: Manjunath Gogi

My Story

Manjunath Gogi, KLEIT Hubballi

Hi, I am Manjunath Gogi. I began my LEAD journey in the November of 2012 and since then it has been a constant learning experience of over 3 years. When I think about how it all began, the first thing that strikes me is that I was always passionate and involved about my technical ideas and wanted to work with them. However, the urge to join LEAD arose only after I began watching my enthusiastic friends who stayed busy with different LEAD projects. Soon I joined LEAD and got a good platform from where I could pitch my ideas and also could get involved in the social issues. After joining LEAD, over time my ideas and thoughts over the various issues, my perspective to see things and eventually my mindset at large has changed.

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I have done three social projects in LEAD and out of these three; I would like to talk about one. It is about giving security helpline number to women. I believe that women should be always respected and seeing them getting eve teased and harassed bothered me. I wanted to do something. So I took a step and launched my first project ‘Women Security Protocol’. I talked to a women association near my home about my idea and intention behind this project and they agreed to help me out. The women from the association gathered on the 8th of March 2013, the International Women’s Day. On the very day, with the help of these women and the police authorities, I re-launched a security helpline number for the women in the area of Navanagar. This would not have been possible if the women association, Mr. H.D. Kulkarni (C.P.I. of Navanagar Police Station) and Mr. I.M. Dundasi (P.S.I of Navanagar Police Station) had not supported, encouraged and stood by me. The helpline number is 0836-2233512.

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At Talaash 2014 with LEAD Functional Head Mr. Ajay Suman Shukla

My biggest accomplishment in my LEAD journey has been starting Talaash. Having a dream is not a big deal but achieving it is what matters!  I wanted to organize a technical event and came up with the idea ‘TALAASH’. The event was meant for the students pursuing engineering and diploma course. The participants were required to prepare a prototype model and the best innovative and commercial viable projects will get seed capital for its execution. The main motto of the event was to transform the student into an entrepreneur using his or her own idea.   It was both my biggest dream as well as challenge. Since it was being organized for the first time, I faced many setbacks at the beginning but with the help of my mentors and my teammates I came through those setbacks and achieved success. I started alone but later a lot of people joined me one by one and we had a great team at the end. The biggest challenge was still to get the sponsorship.

Amidst many negative responses, the first positive response came in form of Mr. Sasishekar Krish (Founder and CEO, nanoPix) who agreed to sponsor the event with Rs. 1.5 Lakhs. It brought a new zeal within me and helped me to move forward. I began working harder. Later on I approached Dr. B.S. Anami, the Principal of my college with our LEAD coordinator Madhumati Madam and my principal agreed to host the event in our college. Thus, my college became hosting partner of our event ‘TALAASH’ and we finally ended up raising a sponsorship of Rs.177,500/-.

Thereafter, our next milestone was to get registrations of 50+ projects. At the beginning, we had only 10 registrations which made us worried. But later on with the help of Dr. B.S Anami, we finally reached 57 registrations from the different parts of the state.

TALAASH '14 gave a good platform to over 225 students, and also venture capital of Rs. 40,000 to two projects, Rs. 25,000 to two more projects and Rs.15, 000 to one more project.

Finishing the event successfully was not the end for me, it was the starting step which made me test my abilities to the extinct. I started working with the winning teams of Talaash’14 and helped them to start their company. Now, that winning team named CAKEBOARD has already started their company. (www.cakeboard.in)

On stage with the judges at Talaash 2015

The success of Talaash ’14 triggered me to start it again. Team TALAASH and I started it again. This time we aimed for a bigger target; 4 times larger than Talaash’14... and we successfully reached the target! Even this time, Mr. Sasishekar Krish (Founder and CEO, nanoPix) sponsored for the prize money, which was Rs. 3,00,000/- total.

TALAASH had received 200 applications/ideas from 23 different cities and 37 different colleges’ across Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Greater Noida, Delhi, Maharashtra, and Telangana. Out of 200, top 85 ideas were shortlisted for the second round, and the top 30 teams were further selected to showcase their prototype in the final event on 7th May at KLEIT, Hubballi.

Top 3 Ideas were chosen among all the presented ideas. They were awarded with a seed fund of Rs. 1,00,000/- each from nanoPix Company and incubation support from Deshpande Foundation’s Sandbox Startups. 

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At LEAD Prayana 2015

Through LEAD, I have had many other great opportunities. I have taken part in LLP 2014 and LEAD Prayana 2015. My experience in LLP in 2014 helped me get the idea for Talaash, and then in Prayana in 2015, I got the motivation to execute it. Both of these LEAD opportunities were amazing, but in different ways. LLP was very helpful for me in terms of skills development, and Prayana was immensely inspiring!

At Yuva Summit 2016, I was a speaker at LEAD Talks and shared my leadership story with the crowd of 500 attendees, including my peers and special guests. It was my first experience doing major public speaking, and it was a tremendous learning opportunity for me.

Speaking at LEAD Talk, Yuva Summit 2016