After a set of rigorous tests and interviews I was accepted to participate in Singapore India Hackathon. My team was Runner's Up and was awarded by the Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi and the former Education Minister of Singapore, Mr. Ong Ye Kung .

What was our contribution?

Our proposed idea solves one of the major problems on the WHO's priority list, unsafe injection practices. In countries such as India and Pakistan, unethical reuse of syringes is not something unheard of even though the doctors (and other people involved in this malpractice) know exactly how dangerous it is for even healthy people.

We proposed a method of manufacturing of syringes that would make it very easy for patients to easily detect if the syringe being used on them is new or used previously. Putting the patient in charge would be a major step to completely eradicate the practice of reusing of syringes.

Our proposed syringes contained a chemical compound (photochromic) which changed color irreversibly when exposed to light. So, for example, when a doctor takes out a syringe from its packaging (which would be opaque in places where the compound is present), the syringe would be exposed to the light and after a few minutes (enough for the doctor to use on one and only patiently) the syringe will irreversibly change its color.

Below I show you the proof of concept that we used to demonstrate the idea (the video is sped up)

To enable better regulations (especially to avoid any accidental reuse and with patients who are not conscious enough to be in charge), we created a robust deep learning model which takes as input a camera feed of the Staging Area (the trolly on which doctors keep their equipments while operating) and alerts if a used syringe is not discarded soon and is in the vicinity of other syringes, hence being a more likely candidate for being reused.

In the video below, you can see how the detection worked. The used syringes are detected and enclosed in a red box by our algorithm. To show that it can differentiate well between a used and a non-used syringe, we also show the detection of the "good" and unused syringes in a green box. Other objects which are not classified as a syringe are shown in a blue box