Meghalaya uses AI-enabled tech to clean up tourist hotspot Umiam lake
Meghalaya has adopted Artificial Intelligence enabled robotic technology to keep it's beautiful tourist hotspot Umiam lake clean, as the lake at an altitude of about 4,900 feet is also a major hub for water sports and boating in hill town Shillong.
The AI-integrated robotic boat is able to collect huge quantities of garbage in reasonable time from Umiam Lake, that was formed when a dam was built over the Umiam river in the early sixties as part of a hydel power project.
Under the Meghalaya government's Smart Village initiative, the AI- enabled robotic boat was recently deployed in collaboration with a global non-profit organisation called Smart Village Movement (SVM), and Hong Kong-based technology firm Clearbot after a week-long demonstration.
Tulenam Laloo, Fellow at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, and Director of Operations for the initiative in Meghalaya, highlighted that «this technology was first tested in Bali (Indonesia) and tried to transfer such capabilities to Meghalaya, a growing tourist destination today, to solve waste collection in a famous.
»Such models will create standard processes to handle waste in a timely manner making operations more efficient than conventional ones.
These technologies must be leveraged to a great extent to address the growing menace of waste in general but particularly help scale such operations to similar locations and bring back a thriving ecology and magnificent touristic experiences," Laloo told IANS.
Ramkumar, a senior IAS official and nodal officer of the Smart Village Movement in Meghalaya said that innovation is not just by accident, it is the concerted effort of people who really want to bring change.
«Everyone has capabilities to create change at their own
