AMU team win ‘Judges Choice Award’, NASA Space App Challenge

Aligarh: ‘Team blaze’ comprising Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) students, Umair Shahajhani (Z H College of Engineering and Technology) and Omja (Senior Secondary school Girls) won the ‘Judges Choice Award’ of the international NASA Space App Challenge 2020.

The AMU team had participated in the global hackathon from their home computers to tackle one of the most pressing worldwide issues: The Covid-19 pandemic, said Tazeen Siddiqui, Lead, NASA space App Challenge. The event was judged by two ISRO scientists, Mr Uzair Mujeeb and Syed Shadab.

The ‘Team blaze’ is one of the two teams from AMU to have won the award. The other team, ALTAIR lead by AMU students Ayesha Samdani (MBBS), Mohd Zakir Husain (MBBS), Aman Ahmad Khan (MBBS), Abdullah Samdani (BA LLB) and Faisal Jamil, a BTech student from the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh also won the ‘Judges Choice Award’ for presenting a solution in response to the NASA’s Challenge ‘A One Health Approach’.

ALTAIR members through their presentation shed light on how improved air quality has been an unintended but welcome consequence of the lockdown to contain the coronavirus. They gave an analysis of the air quality of the pre and post lockdown periods in the Indo Gangetic region of Northern India. Their study gave details about how an improvement in the air quality benefited the health of people.

The team members also coded an Air Quality Index (AQI) Calculator to measure AQI of a certain region, which is helpful in giving health and cautionary statements and providing guidance to common people on pollution related health issues.