BPCL

A Template for Replicating Success

To quote an example of the kind of innovation the 25 selected startups bring, Detect Technologies – one of the project awardees – brings a bouquet of enhanced predictive capabilities in the area of inspection and health monitoring of industrial assets, especially those which are difficult to access. A combination of a hardware solution integrated with predictive algorithms is helping BPCL with health assessment of industrial heaters and stacks during planned turnarounds using drones. The process is quick, efficient and safer, as it avoids the need for setting up scaffolding and related paraphernalia.

Creating societal impact with advanced technology is one of the prime objectives of Project Ankur. A brilliant example of societal benefits arising out of this initiative is the ‘bandicoot' – an AI-driven sewage manhole cleaning robot developed by Genrobotics, one of the 25 startup awardees of Project Ankur. The use of bandicoot, now its version 2.0, banishes the age-old unhygienic and inhumane practice of employing humans for scavenging. The thoughtfully developed robotic solution replaces humans without depriving sanitation workers of their livelihood, as they are retrained as bandicoot operators.

The robot consists of two major units, a stand unit to program and control the robot and a robotic drone unit that is customizable to operate under different depths as required. The robot can work in hazardous or corrosive sewerage environments effectively for longer periods.

At the last count, the Bandicoot has been successfully employed in 50 manhole cleaning operations at Mumbai Refinery and for 10 manholes in public areas in collaboration with Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai.

BPCL's collaboration with startups has resulted in success stories that have created a template for more such collaboration efforts from various business units of the Corporation with startups. Some such collaborations are highlighted below.

• Adit Bioscience:
  Using advanced biotechnological tools, Adit Bioscience is improving cattle breeding to produce only female calves of better genetic merit.
• Aerostrovilos Energy:
  Aerostrovilos Energy is building India’s first indigenous gas turbines to create a net carbon-neutral ecosystem with the help of biofuels. It will help India in reducing its fuel import dependency.
• Airpix Devices:
  AIRPIX deliveres numerous drone solutions, ranging from drone data acquisition, drone data processing, analysis, and development or integration of web and mobile applications for surveying and mapping, inspection and analysis, data processing, aerial photography, and project monitoring.
• Anthill Creation Foundation:
  Anthill Creation Foundation, a not for profit organization, is enhancing the experience of play for all. They design interactive playscapes and collaborative projects, ensuring that people disconnect from their virtual existence and truly experience the joy of play and enables peer-to-peer learning through spatial design to teach 'reduce, reuse & recycle' to create sustainable, long-lasting and impactful experiences.
• Breathe Applied Sciences:
  Breathe Applied Sciences has developed geographically unconstrained breakthrough low-cost, green and scalable technologies which can convert carbon dioxide emissions into methanol with the highest new value. It is the only team from India to reach the finals of the $20-million global challenge – NRG Cosia Carbon XPrize.
• CyCa OncoSolutions:
  CyCa OncoSolutions is working on Molecular nanomachines to solve efficient delivery of drugs into living cells by penetrating the cell membrane without damaging the cells, with minimum toxicity. CyCa-dds is non-toxic and has low immunogenicity. The technology can be applied to pharmaceutical, agriculture, manufacturing and lab reagents.
• Detect Technologies:
  Detect Technologies provides patented hardware and predictive intelligent algorithms for development of real predictive capability. Their products are designed to simplify decision making through real time insights about assets – especially inaccessible assets – simplifying inspections, digitalizing HSE, drone-based project monitoring, surveying, volumetric estimation and GIS.
• Genrobotic Innovations:
  Genrobotic Innovations have developed an AI-driven robotic drone – the Bandicoot – which dives into sewage manholes to clean them, banishing the inhumane practice of manual scavenging. The robot can perform its operation in hazardous or corrosive sewerage environments effectively for longer periods.
• EyeROV Technologies:
  EyeROV Technologies, a marine robotics startup, provides robotic solutions to conduct underwater inspections. EyeROV TUNA, a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) robot performs underwater inspection of dams, bridges, ports, offshore structures, ship hulls, pipelines and other critical underwater structures.
• Lorven Biologics:
  Lorven Biologics is addressing the global need for affordable, safe and efficacious peptide therapeutics, vaccines and biosimilars as well as nutritional products by interlinking biotechnology and synthetic biology with chemistry.
• Maiestas Technologies:
  Maiestas Technologies focuses on all-round sustainable development and growth in the manufacturing segment of various industries by providing streamlined business solutions for small, medium and large organizations. They are also one of the few manufacturers of specification-grade recessed, surface down lights and specific industrial lighting for commercial and domestic use.
• Mantra Social Services:
  Mantra Social takes a fresh approach towards the vision of holistic development of society, with the key component being quality and equity in education. At the last count, Mantra has partnered with 88 schools in Bengaluru. Their impact is through improved student outcomes, empowered school leadership, better teaching-learning practices, and productive community participation.
• Maximl Labs:
  Maximl Labs provides collaborative intelligent field automation Industry 4.0 solutions to empower deskless workers with automated information flow between machines, teams, and workers through digitalization and collaboration tools to improve productivity, quality, and safety.
• MedTel Healthcare:
  MedTel Healthcare provides comprehensive multi-channel tele-health solutions for connecting patients with doctors and hospitals, enabling remote patient monitoring in real time in situations like, say, COVID-19 home isolation health monitoring. With one mobile app for 15+ connected medical devices, their WhatsApp Health Bot increases patients’ access to care providers and provides enables integration with existing EMR applications.
• Nava Design Innovation:
  Nava Design & Innovation Pvt Ltd is an agri-tech startup company that works towards bringing AI and robotics to enrich the agriculture sector by helping farmers and FPOs gain better profits and increase productivity, allowing farmers to diversify their product portfolios and encouraging women empowerment in the cottage industries. Their product “SAPER” is “The world’s first coconut sap tapping robot,” which has patents granted in 28 major coconut developing countries that constitute 90% of the global coconut market.
• Param People Infotech Solutions:
  Their mobile application Highway Delite is inspired by the thought of making your highway journey more comfortable, convenient, and safe by providing verified information of required services on highways – like restaurants, hotels, lodges, fuel stations, mechanic, emergency numbers, etc. on real time location basis, in unbiased and complete form.
• Planys Technologies :
  Planys Technologies provides underwater robotic inspection and survey solutions using indigenously manufactured remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for underwater robotic inspection and diagnostics in the shallow-mid depth segment for industrial sectors in India. Planys’ technology spans the domains of marine robotics, advanced non-destructive evaluation (NDE) and post-inspection analysis.
• Prantae Solutions:
  Prantae has developed a range of nanosensors along with custom applications for detection of disease biomarkers for health monitoring, research and diagnostic applications. For example, their ProFlo-U is an innovation in self-health monitoring that enables you to keep track of your kidneys function, while their EyeRa-Sense can measure nucleic acids, small RNAs or proteins.
• Resnova Technologies:
  Resnova specializes in designing and developing custom electronic products, special purpose machines and custom technology solutions in the sectors of Advanced Electronics, Robotics & Automation and Internet of Things (IOT) etc., addressing diverse problems of a wide variety of clients, ranging from agriculture to industries.
• Shastra Robotics:
  Envisioning a future where man and machine coexist, Shastra Robotics builds and delivers scalable robotic solutions for human-like automated functional testing of real physical devices, revolutionizing industries with intelligent robotic manipulators to mimic human actions. Their intelligent testing solutions speed up the testing process manifold and eliminate errors involved in human-based testing.
• Swadha Energies:
  Zedbee, born as Swadha Energies, harnesses IoT technology for building automation and control, to improve everyday lives, improve comfort and to save huge amounts of energy through their cloud-powered IoT solution. The innovative platform links critical infrastructure equipment with one spot data management that ensures secured and efficient operations.
• Tatvagya Thinkzone:
  ThinkZone is an award-winning social enterprise that works towards improving the educational outcomes of children from under-resourced communities using a 'tech plus touch' model and activity-based methodology by empowering community educators, school teachers, public childcare workers, and parents to deliver quality early-childhood and primary grade education programs.
• Waarey Solutions:
  Waarey is bringing the next wave of innovation to the wastewater industry through advanced biotechnology research. The heart of any wastewater system is the microbial community. Applying microbes that have been selected for their advanced abilities to perform certain functions to a wastewater system improves the performance of the microbial community. Waarey has developed a range of products for the municipal facilities to enhance microbial communities and optimize wastewater systems.
• Wafer Chips Techno:
  Kerala-based Waferchips Techno Solutions provides services in Embedded Programming and Development on Microchip, TI, AVR, Arduino and ARM in C/C++/Assembly Language, PCB designing & prototyping, Web development, Application development, etc. They provide product design services for industrial automation, instrumentation, embedded & wireless communication, security & identification, sensing, lighting, software development and general sales & distribution.
• Zoo Fresh Foods:
  FreshR, by ZooFresh Foods, is India’s first one-stop solution for the fresh meat industry. They build tech-enabled ‘Wal-Marts of Meat’, setting standards in fresh meat retail, aggregating farmer produce, and building rural and urban distribution networks via their logistics and micro-entrepreneurs. The products include live and dressed broiler chicken, exotic poultry (desi, vanaraj & kadaknath chicken, quails, ducks etc), live and dressed freshwater fish, seafood from across India, commercial and free-range eggs, and value-added products.