A big part of career satisfaction is being passionate about the job you do on a daily basis. But when you combine your professional skills with a cause that you care about deeply, and the chance to serve your country, you can bring that passion to a whole new level.
Meet Mirza Samnani and his robot “Gollar”. 23 years old Mirza lives in Mumbai, India, and he is passionate about building robots. He owns a company (Ignite research labs), which has won seven awards in just three years of existence. Mirza, a Mechatronics engineer, has built Lunar and Mars Rovers, underwater ROVs, and much more to conduct world-class research for space and underwater sciences in his young career.
India vs Covid-19: Mirza and Gollar to the rescue
As of today (July 20, 2020), India has reached a grim milestone of million Covid-19 cases. It is now third on the Johns Hopkins University tally of country cases, following the US and Brazil.
As India started to grapple with this pandemic earlier this year, Mirza couldn’t see himself sitting on the sidelines. He wanted to do something for his country. He wanted to use his experience for the betterment. His desire to serve his country led him to the idea of building his next invention, a robot “Gollar“, named after health officer Dr. Devendra Golhar, that could serve food and medicines for patients recovering from Covid-19, and also help the health care staff to maintain their distance.
Having made lunar and Underwater robots, and representing India at NASA, my advisor, and parents suggested that I should create something to help fight the pandemic. Given my experience working on Space projects before, I thought why not have bots do the work of nurses, ward boys and doctors increasing their isolation and safety. Mirza Samnani
According to Mirza’s calculations, this “cost effective” alternative also helps the hospitals keep the cost down by not spending as much on PPEs.
The bot is remotely operated with a range of up to 1 km. “Gollar” carries food, medicine, etc up to 30 kgs and disinfects surfaces. Optionally, it also has 2-way interaction for doctors to communicate with the patients. This reduces the use of PPEs, the risk of infection, biohazard wastes, and the robot is cost-effective to the extent that hospitals recover the cost of robots against the cost of PPEs in just 2 months, and then they run it at a profit against the cost of PPEs.
On July 7, 2020, Mirza’s hard work came to fruition. First ever robot built by Mirza and his team was deployed at M. A. Podar Hospital in Worli, Mumbai. Shri Aditya Uddhav Thackeray (Cabinet Minister of Tourism and Environment Government of Maharashtra) was present at the inauguration.
Beaming with pride, Mirza couldn’t help but recall why he started his company.
I started Ignite Labs with the idea of imparting education, and today giving back to the healthcare workers, and to my country in the form of this ingenious robot, I am just humbled. I am humbled to be given this opportunity. I can’t thank Mawlana Hazar Imam enough for his continued guidance to his mureeds, for always emphasizing on the importance of sound education.
The next robot which will be deployed at NSCI dome and racecourse centres will feature remote patient testing and patient-doctor interaction too.
Mirza plans to attend the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) in the Fall of 2020 to pursue his Masters in Aerospace Engineering.
Ismailimail has received permission from Mirza Samnani to use photo\video for this article.
Ismailimail 