[Music]
we have 1.3 billion people 100,000 water
systems and 70% of our pipes have led
these statistics represent the state of
India’s water quality in the extent of
contamination how many of us are
absolutely sure that the water we are
drinking is safe and contaminant free I
am gitanjali Rao and I find solutions to
real world problems my journey has been
my journey has been about tackling one
of the main challenges we face today
access to clean drinking water and along
this journey I developed a device that
detects led and water faster than
current techniques while my story has a
whole lot of science
it speaks to something much larger how
we can collectively encourage science
and technology and solve the problems in
our society it all started two years ago
when I learned about the water crisis in
the city of Flint state of Michigan us
where peak lead levels were detected to
be around 127 parts per billion way
above the US Environmental Protection
Agency standards of 15 parts per billion
of led surprisingly this was not just
limited to a city in mid Michigan and
it’s hundred thousand residents this is
a worldwide problem and we need to do
mercury arsenic cadmium and lead are the
top contaminants in water and are
growing every day 60 percent of the
water in the indo-gangetic Basin has
harmful levels of arsenic out of these
lead poisoning is growing at an alarming
proportion 33 percent of water samples
from the top 26 cities in India have
harmful levels of lead out of these 31
percent failed to adhere to the World
Health Organization standards a 50 of 15
parts per million of lead and 2 percent
of these fail to even meet India
standards and very lenient standards of
50 to 100 parts per billion of lead let
can enter our water through many
channels it can come through corroded
old lead pipes solders and pipe joins
fixtures low quality PVC pipes and even
brass faucets all of these are very
common to find in India we have a big
problem in our hands and letting water
is far bigger than letting our instant
let me tell you why this is such a big
problem Lev is harmful because of the
lingering effects it has on the human
body
in simple terms LED and calcium compete
for the same location within the body
and are stored within the bone
so when LED is present in the system the
body substitutes it for the calcium and
builds up everything with it so the
younger the child the more impact a
child can experience birth defects or
abnormal growth with harmful levels of
lead in their body health effects of
light and water ranges anywhere from
just headaches and nausea
to possible seizures and even death lack
of knowledge of contamination and the
extent of contamination is the bigger
problem as it has kept people away from
finding alternatives sooner and taking
action
hence detection became my primary focus
the current solutions in countries like
India or America are either cumbersome
take time or expensive they don’t
necessarily look at detection accuracy
contamination levels together they’re
either test strips which are not
accurate or sending your water to your
local water facility lab which is
inconvenient expensive and takes time
unfortunately in countries like India
there are no easy home test kits at all
my solution addresses the core issue of
speedy detection of lead contamination
helping people take preventative
measures and maybe even saving lives it
uses the latest developments in
nanotechnology is easy to use fast
accurate portable and inexpensive MIT
and others have been working on using
carbon nanotube based sensor technology
to detect hazardous gases in the air I
decide to expand this idea to apply for
liquids to detect lead and water due to
the complexity of detecting lead
especially in the liquid medium this
required a radically different approach
than current salut
in the market therefore I’ve decided to
build one I made my device tempest after
the Greek goddess of fresh water and it
fills the gaps in the current solutions
[Applause]
tempest includes three main parts a core
device housing a processor with a
bluetooth extension and a nine volt
power source a disposable cartridge that
attaches to the core device and forms a
circuit with a processor due to the
nature of my medium liquids I had to use
a buckypaper form of carbon nanotubes so
it wouldn’t easily dispersed in the
water and lastly a smartphone that
connects over Bluetooth to display
results the wordsman of this device is
quite simple this disposable let’s
sensor cartridge here includes carbon
nanotubes specially treated with
chloride ions let’s say the water here
has led in it when I dip this into the
water I want to test the lead in the
water binds with the chloride ions in
the nanotubes forming lead chloride
molecules increasing the amount of
resistance to the flow of current as
well as decreasing the conductivity the
conductivity drop is Co related to the
severity of the lead compounds in water
to make it easier for the user I added
an Arduino processor to measure all
resistance and current values and a
Bluetooth extension so we can send all
the data to your mobile phone in the
form of either safe slightly
contaminated or a critical the results
show up almost instantaneously on your
smartphone on an easy-to-read visual
scale at an RD or prototype cost my
device costs about 1300 rupees and the
and the cartridge cost close to 275
rupees at scale I hope to bring the
entire device cost down to 300 rupees
I’m currently working on evolving my
device even further and I also received
investment funding I’m happy to mail to
you the latest version of my device it
is more compact and has better sensor
usability I’m also planning on refining
the carbon nanotube sensor to make sure
it’s more accurate performing false
positive tests trying with other dopant
such as fluorine and iodine and even in
the future adding the option to crowd
source device data skill testing
continues to be a primary focus and I
hope to partner with various research
labs and water facilities in the future
in order to perform tests I believe that
the purpose of science is to make a
unfortunately statistically there are
not many girls in the science and
technology field and I wouldn’t be here
without the support and guidance I
received along the way science needs all
available hands and intellects to come
together and solve the problems of today
and tomorrow it needs all of us we need
to come together and take action I am
glad that my fellow speakers are
speaking about this and I’m trying to do
my part and speaking at various forums
like these and seeking help from
[Applause]
as well as seeking help from not only
industry leaders but also law makers as
you can see here I believe that we
should aspire to solve bigger problems
the invention of my device was motivated
by a problem that I’m very passionate
about solving if I could request one
thing from each of you it would be to
seek a mentee and mentor them in the
areas that they are passionate about we
can spread awareness in our community
about these issues by raising funds
promoting science technology especially
for girls in rural India and encouraging
aspiring problem solvers and
volunteering our time paraphrasing a
quote from my favorite scientist Marie
Curie we have come such a long way but
we still have so much more to do when we
look ahead if we all recognize and
alleviate the problems that our fellow
citizens face we can make the world a
better place thank you [Applause]
we have 1.3 billion people 100,000 water
systems and 70% of our pipes have led
these statistics represent the state of
India’s water quality in the extent of
contamination how many of us are
absolutely sure that the water we are
drinking is safe and contaminant free I
am gitanjali Rao and I find solutions to
real world problems my journey has been
my journey has been about tackling one
of the main challenges we face today
access to clean drinking water and along
this journey I developed a device that
detects led and water faster than
current techniques while my story has a
whole lot of science
it speaks to something much larger how
we can collectively encourage science
and technology and solve the problems in
our society it all started two years ago
when I learned about the water crisis in
the city of Flint state of Michigan us
where peak lead levels were detected to
be around 127 parts per billion way
above the US Environmental Protection
Agency standards of 15 parts per billion
of led surprisingly this was not just
limited to a city in mid Michigan and
it’s hundred thousand residents this is
a worldwide problem and we need to do
mercury arsenic cadmium and lead are the
top contaminants in water and are
growing every day 60 percent of the
water in the indo-gangetic Basin has
harmful levels of arsenic out of these
lead poisoning is growing at an alarming
proportion 33 percent of water samples
from the top 26 cities in India have
harmful levels of lead out of these 31
percent failed to adhere to the World
Health Organization standards a 50 of 15
parts per million of lead and 2 percent
of these fail to even meet India
standards and very lenient standards of
50 to 100 parts per billion of lead let
can enter our water through many
channels it can come through corroded
old lead pipes solders and pipe joins
fixtures low quality PVC pipes and even
brass faucets all of these are very
common to find in India we have a big
problem in our hands and letting water
is far bigger than letting our instant
let me tell you why this is such a big
problem Lev is harmful because of the
lingering effects it has on the human
body
in simple terms LED and calcium compete
for the same location within the body
and are stored within the bone
so when LED is present in the system the
body substitutes it for the calcium and
builds up everything with it so the
younger the child the more impact a
child can experience birth defects or
abnormal growth with harmful levels of
lead in their body health effects of
light and water ranges anywhere from
just headaches and nausea
to possible seizures and even death lack
of knowledge of contamination and the
extent of contamination is the bigger
problem as it has kept people away from
finding alternatives sooner and taking
action
hence detection became my primary focus
the current solutions in countries like
India or America are either cumbersome
take time or expensive they don’t
necessarily look at detection accuracy
contamination levels together they’re
either test strips which are not
accurate or sending your water to your
local water facility lab which is
inconvenient expensive and takes time
unfortunately in countries like India
there are no easy home test kits at all
my solution addresses the core issue of
speedy detection of lead contamination
helping people take preventative
measures and maybe even saving lives it
uses the latest developments in
nanotechnology is easy to use fast
accurate portable and inexpensive MIT
and others have been working on using
carbon nanotube based sensor technology
to detect hazardous gases in the air I
decide to expand this idea to apply for
liquids to detect lead and water due to
the complexity of detecting lead
especially in the liquid medium this
required a radically different approach
than current salut
in the market therefore I’ve decided to
build one I made my device tempest after
the Greek goddess of fresh water and it
fills the gaps in the current solutions
[Applause]
tempest includes three main parts a core
device housing a processor with a
bluetooth extension and a nine volt
power source a disposable cartridge that
attaches to the core device and forms a
circuit with a processor due to the
nature of my medium liquids I had to use
a buckypaper form of carbon nanotubes so
it wouldn’t easily dispersed in the
water and lastly a smartphone that
connects over Bluetooth to display
results the wordsman of this device is
quite simple this disposable let’s
sensor cartridge here includes carbon
nanotubes specially treated with
chloride ions let’s say the water here
has led in it when I dip this into the
water I want to test the lead in the
water binds with the chloride ions in
the nanotubes forming lead chloride
molecules increasing the amount of
resistance to the flow of current as
well as decreasing the conductivity the
conductivity drop is Co related to the
severity of the lead compounds in water
to make it easier for the user I added
an Arduino processor to measure all
resistance and current values and a
Bluetooth extension so we can send all
the data to your mobile phone in the
form of either safe slightly
contaminated or a critical the results
show up almost instantaneously on your
smartphone on an easy-to-read visual
scale at an RD or prototype cost my
device costs about 1300 rupees and the
and the cartridge cost close to 275
rupees at scale I hope to bring the
entire device cost down to 300 rupees
I’m currently working on evolving my
device even further and I also received
investment funding I’m happy to mail to
you the latest version of my device it
is more compact and has better sensor
usability I’m also planning on refining
the carbon nanotube sensor to make sure
it’s more accurate performing false
positive tests trying with other dopant
such as fluorine and iodine and even in
the future adding the option to crowd
source device data skill testing
continues to be a primary focus and I
hope to partner with various research
labs and water facilities in the future
in order to perform tests I believe that
the purpose of science is to make a
unfortunately statistically there are
not many girls in the science and
technology field and I wouldn’t be here
without the support and guidance I
received along the way science needs all
available hands and intellects to come
together and solve the problems of today
and tomorrow it needs all of us we need
to come together and take action I am
glad that my fellow speakers are
speaking about this and I’m trying to do
my part and speaking at various forums
like these and seeking help from
[Applause]
as well as seeking help from not only
industry leaders but also law makers as
you can see here I believe that we
should aspire to solve bigger problems
the invention of my device was motivated
by a problem that I’m very passionate
about solving if I could request one
thing from each of you it would be to
seek a mentee and mentor them in the
areas that they are passionate about we
can spread awareness in our community
about these issues by raising funds
promoting science technology especially
for girls in rural India and encouraging
aspiring problem solvers and
volunteering our time paraphrasing a
quote from my favorite scientist Marie
Curie we have come such a long way but
we still have so much more to do when we
look ahead if we all recognize and
alleviate the problems that our fellow
citizens face we can make the world a
better place thank you [Applause]
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