Question: Team Members Full Names:
Answer: Rohit Kadam Ashwin Kadkol Prashant Hegde Vishvesh Khisty

Question: Mentor:
Answer: Raghavendra Rao

Question: Title of Project:
Answer: ASHA (A reciprocative System for Health Automation) - an electronic speech assisted medicine vending machine with an interactive user friendly interface

Question: Project Overview:
Answer: The goal of this OSU team is to design a Reciprocative System for Health Automation (ASHA), which is an electronically assisted medicine vending machine for addressing the problems faced by people living in remote areas with little or no medical assistance.

Question: Technology/Software Used:
Answer: VC# and embedded C on a customized Windows CE 6.0 operating system image.

Question: Inspiration: What inspired your team to enter the Microsoft Imagine Cup and why did you choose the Embedded Development competition?
Answer: Coming from a developing nation like India, all the team members could immediately recognize with the Millennium goals set up by the UN to be achieved by 2015 and could understand the sense of urgency to achieve the same. Microsoft Imagine Cup provides students with one of a kind opportunity to actually channelize and materialize their ideas into tangible products. Not only does the competition provide the students with the necessary resources to conceive their ideas but also provide training via entrepreneurship workshops and the like. The team members have had prior experience with working on projects with embedded systems. Moreover, for the problem ASHA is designed to address, the team needed the product to be stand alone, light weight which could be installed easily at several locations and would be inexpensive with the necessary processor capabilities to perform major decisions (like diagnosis) and interface with several on board sensors. An embedded solution thus became an obvious choice to meet the specific needs of the product.

Question: Team History: How did your team meet?
Answer: The team members have been fellow collegians at Oklahoma State University since two years and have shared some of their coursework. When one of the team members read about the Microsoft Imagine Cup, he set about forming a team. The varied skill set of the team members fit well forming an all round team for the competition, with three of the team members being Electrical majors, one Mechanical major and a Control Systems major.

Question: Team Experience: What experience did your team have with Embedded Development before competing in the Imagine Cup?
Answer: The team members have a varied set of experience in areas like programming (embedded C, VB, VC++, Matlab, Java),Mechatronics (microcontrollers, dsp processors, sensors, actuators) and signal processing (speech processing)

Question: Highlights: What has been the best part of the Imagine Cup competition to date?
Answer: The opportunity given by Microsoft by inviting us to the Software Development US National Finals where we got to attend entrepreneurial workshops and got valuable suggestions and also got to understand the importance of the financial aspects of the venture. Also the sleepless nights we spent working as a team :) has helped us to come up with a better product and in turn improve our skill sets and temperament.

Question: Inspiration: How did your team come up with your submission? Include which Millennium Development Goal inspired your solution.
Answer: The team designed and built a prototype of the Vending machine. Initially, the team created individual modules(like speech, RFID, motors and actuators etc.) These were built and tested. Later on these modules were integrated on a new Operating System image and tested for functionality. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases was the millenium goal which inspired us to come up with this product. our product would ensure effective medicine distribution to under developed countries at subsidised rate.

Question: Challenges: What personal or technological challenges did your team face while developing your submission?
Answer: Creating a new operating system from scratch without any prior experience was the biggest challenge. Being masters students, managing and dividing time between research, academics and the competition was also a challenge.

Question: Future Plans: What does your team plan on doing after the Worldwide Finals in Cairo, Egypt? Do you plan to use your project to launch a new business?
Answer: Our primary goal is to address the health care disparity in remote rural areas when compared to cities. We now have a prototype which has basic diagnostic capabilities.We intend to diversify the diagnostic capabilities first. Subsequently, we intend to carry out a pilot test on a village before we could start on our own venture and for this we intend to license our technology to vending machine manufacturers and in turn convince the pharmacy companies to buy them to start their own services, thus in turn benefiting all.

Question: Links to more information (i.e. website, blog):
Answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dlWauMeUC8