Post by Sameer Showkin Lone on Saturday, October 22, 2022

Srinagar, Oct 21:  Four Kashmiri students whose prototype of a cell phone controlled automatic rice cooker innovation has finally got a patent for its uniqueness of sucking out starch from the rice. The project has also got seed funding from a university.

Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development (CIED) at Islamic University of Science and Technology has recommended a seed funding of Rs 2.72 lakhs, said Jehangir Hameed Lone, an M-Tech student and of the innovators.

Besides Lone who hails from Buchpora Srinagar, his other colleague’s part of the project are Azraw Hussain from Balhama Srinagar, Sajid Noor from Qamarwari Srinagar and Imran Nazir from Baramulla.

The innovators believe if it gets into the market, it will bring relief for the diabetic patients. They are currently exploring alternatives to rope in with some health-tech based companies for further improvements in the prototype.

“We have got the license for the patent. The seed funding is currently a motivation for us to further move on. It is a beginning. We are improving on it. We are looking for some health-tech companies to rope in with so that we can convert the prototype into a marketable product,” said Lone.

“Rice is a staple food in Kashmir. We see a large number of people suffering from diabetes. We hope our innovations bring something on the table that helps the people with diabetes so that they don’t suffer more,” they said. 

The patent authority of India had accepted their patent on the invention. The details of the patent have been in the journal of patents against journal number-44/2021, Journal Date: 29/10/21. 

How does the machine work?

The rice cooker will cook food with a single text message sent by a user through a mobile phone. It will monitor the starch status of the rice being cooked and display it on the screen once the starch is fully discharged out of the rice.

According to the inventors, the main goal of this invention is to suck out the starch from the rice using electro-mechanical intervention keeping in view the diabetic patients. 

“The proposed device will cook food on a single text message remotely for multiple persons and will monitor the starch status of rice being cooked,” said Jahangir Hamid, one of the inventors.

The rice cooker is inbuilt with a rice bowl and water tank which are controlled by  controllers and hence no physical mediation is required while cooking or keeping the prepared food warm. 

“The rice cooker is programmed and configured to receive predetermined input commands from a mobile phone to cook rice for a particular number of person(s) ranging from 1 to 12.  The device is fully automatic as it is controlled by GSM and IoT based technology,” said Jahangir Hameed, who is part of the innovation team.

According to Hameed, the cooker is designed as such that it prompts the user whether to suck out the starch from rice or not because healthy people need starch for their body. 

“It is intended for out of home people also in light of the fact that while getting back from working environment, sports, outing, and so forth so being drained and having no capacity to prepare Food there comes its fundamental work into account and a Single Text from Mobile Phone or other source will accomplish the cooking work itself,” they said.