TechFest winner – App for Glaucoma Diagnosis

Developing an app in the Witblox Young Inventor Challenge IIT Bombay Techfest, Arjun from Grade 12 won Second Prize and 20,000 INR. His project ‘A Deep Learning Approach for Screening Angle Closure Glaucoma using Facial Images’, was chosen because of its originality, application of technology, efficacy, scalability and being environmentally friendly. We reached out to Arjun to learn more about his innovation and possibilities for the future.  

It was an honor to be selected as a winner – Arjun, Grade 12 

Being organised by the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, IIT Bombay is Asia’s largest Science and Technology festival with 800 participants from all over the country. The competition that was held online aims to harness creative ability among youth and encourage them to produce innovative solutions to real world problems. Based on chosen themes, participants identify a problem, plan and propose their idea, and create a working model. “I took part in the Techfest to challenge myself in the competition, while also seeking the opportunity to learn from fellow students who have a similar passion for innovating and inventing”, says Arjun, who was part of the top 20 participants who were selected to present their projects for the final round, where the top three were decided. 

Arjun’s idea was related to health and Angle Closure Glaucoma (ACG), an aggressive and debilitating illness of the eye. The illness is one of the leading causes of irreversible blindness, which affects 23 million people worldwide. Early diagnosis is important to prevent disease progression. But it is limited due to difficult access to medical expertise and equipment: “In developing countries like India, I realised lack of access leads to higher blindness rates, as people in rural and remote areas are unable to travel long distances to see a doctor as they are too busy earning a living.” 

Developing a low-cost and non-invasive smartphone-based screening tool, Arjun’s invention uses image processing and computer vision techniques to identify features in an image, which helps to assess the risk of ACG in a patient. “This screening tool can be used on subjects of all ages and can be operated by anyone with a smartphone camera”, explains Arjun, and says that it makes it easier to use in both rural and urban environments. If a patient is classified as being at risk, they can be referred to a medical professional for further diagnosis, reducing the risk of blindness. 

Arjun met a few challenges when implementing his project in a real-world setting, as there are issues such as photo quality and background colors, as well as disturbances due to partial coverage of the eye by eyelashes. “With the help of image processing and signal processing algorithms I was able to devise a method by which I could filter out unwanted noise to have a clear image that could then be used in the pipeline for further processing”, says Arjun. “Other challenges included finding a hospital to validate my tool on real patients in the times of Covid for which I had to contact over a dozen different hospitals.”  

Honoured to be selected as a winner, Arjun has received a confirmation and inspiration for the future: “I look to continue my work to use AI for frugal innovation by leveraging technology to bring positive change in the interdisciplinary fields of computer science and medicine.” 

To learn more about the inspirational Teachfest competition, visit the Young Inventor Techfest website.