Ideas

Inside the Technopreneurial Mind

One of the tenets of technopreneurship is the ability to create new and useful ideas that solve the problems and challenges people face everyday. In this assignment, I have described some such ideas of mine, which I believe will be help enhance and enrich people s lives. Submitted to: Associate Professor Dr. Jyoti Tandukar

Pratap Thapa <TIMer -155>

5/1/2011

Idea:
Water powered pump for irrigation purposes

How:
Link mechanism to make movement of piston rod linear Water Wheel

Inlet controlled by 2 one way valves

Outlet controlled by 2 one way

Fig 1: How water powered pump works This kind of pump will be used to pump water from flowing river to lands at a height for irrigation purpose. The idea is to use the kinetic and potential energy of water flowing in the river to power the pump. The working will be as shown in the schematic diagram. The rotary motion of the wheel will be converted into linear motion by the lever whose motion will be transmitted to the piston. The piston pushes the water in the cylinder, and water being incompressible, will go to the outlet pipe which contains a one way valve to prevent the backflow of water. Similarly, the inlet pipe also contains the one way valve to prevent backflow of water. To increase the efficiency of the pump, two sets of inlet and outlet pipes are proposed in the design. As the wheel rotates the piston moves up and down and pushes the water coming from inlet to outlet pipe. As more and more water is pushed to the outlet pipe and is prevented to backflow, the water can be taken to a height.

Why:
The topography of Nepal is such that we have rivers running through the hills and the agricultural lands are in the banks of the river and on the hills. Nepal is an agricultural country but we have not been able to attain the maximum agricultural productivity due to lack of irrigation facilities. Only about 20% of the agricultural land is irrigated in Nepal. Since it will take a long time and money to build canals for irrigation facilities, I have thought of pumping the water from river for irrigation facilities. The idea came

to me when I saw, that in village of Lele, some people were charging up to Rs. 500/hour rent for the diesel pumps to pump water. That is too costly for poor farmers to bear and hence farmers are not able to do ropain on time, which ultimately means they are not able to cultivate their primary means of food and livelihood. If we can successfully build this kind of pump , which will be of low cost and virtually runs on zero operating cost, it will help a lot for traditional farmers as well as modern farmers who are attracted to vegetable farming and organic farming day by day. If we go through east west highway, we can observe how people have been attracted to cash crops farming, especially in Dhading area. The farmers however are facing irrigation problems, even though the huge Trishuli River may be flowing just a few meters down.

Research:
Relation between rpm of the water wheel and flow rate of the water is to be calculated. The powerefficiency relation with height is also to be calculated. The optimum piston bore-stroke ratio is also to be calculated for maximum efficiency. I have initiated some research for the idea and from my initial study, I have concluded the project to be feasible, however, the flow rate (efficiency) shall be increased if the pump is to be used for irrigating in paddy fields. A lot of work has to be done to manufacture the pump with accuracy especially the piston and cylinder. At the initial phase a prototype can be built using cheaper materials like plastic and such.

Supplementary:
The water wheel can be powered by solar power in addition to the power from flowing river to achieve higher flow rate. Similarly, in the future we can also power the pump using wind power. I would like to manufacture the pump on a commercial scale and distribute to all over Nepal.

Marketing:
Since, the target niche is primarily the farmers; they may not be able to afford the initial cost of the pump even though the operating costs are very minimal. For that matter, I think, going through cooperatives and selling the pumps will be the best way to market, where, we can charge minimal monthly fees from the farmers. To develop the pump, I think we can contact the funding agencies working on renewable energy. We might also get some kind of subsidies and support from the government. For achieving effectiveness in performance and maintenance, we can actually give the ownership of such equipment to the community. We can specifically devise the marketing strategy, once we are sure of the final cost of the equipment.

Idea:
Online Record keeping for retail stores

How:
An interactive website will be made, which will serve to retail stores and small businesses to keep their ledger records. The website will contain browser based account keeping software. The interested persons can register themselves online and will get a 15 days trial period, during which they can check the features. Any business purchasing the software gets easy and affordable solution for account record keeping, as they do not need to purchase expensive software and they can access their records from anywhere anytime. The website will be periodically maintained and all the data will be kept highly confidential.

Why:
The small and medium sized retail stores cannot afford highly expensive software for accounting purpose and are keeping handwritten records. If affordable solution can be provided, all these stores would want to keep their records on computer. The idea is just like how Google document is replacing Microsoft office. Instead of having to replicate the software in each computer at a costly price, there can be common browser based software which can be used at a minimal cost. This will help the stores to manage their records in an effective manner.

Research:
Data security is the prime concern for implementing this idea. Hence research is to be conducted on transmitting the data in a secure manner. Market research is to be conducted as to how many of the retail store owners are computer literate and how many would like to use this software. Easy and interactive interface will be the key for website s success; hence we need to research on that part too.

Supplementary:
After successful integration in the web, we can also bring the mobile version of the website which will make the product even more accessible to small retail stores. We can also go on adding inventory management software and other similar softwares in the website.

Marketing:
The product will be mainly marketed via World Wide Web. The advertisements as well as order taking and payment system will be conducted online. Users will be given a 15 day trial period once they register, and will have to pay to get the full access. The customers will be charged a minimal registration fees and will have to pay monthly/annual fees for using the website. Since the target market will be small business holders, the pricing will be done keeping lower profit margin but shall earn enough profit to update the when constantly and remain in the competition.

Idea:
Portable Oil Expeller

How:
The oil seeds to be crushed are kept in a hopper, and passes through a tapered helical screw. As the oil seeds pass though the helical screw, they get crushed as the gap between the screw and the cap goes on decreasing. The oil comes out through fine slit at the bottom of the housing, which is collected in a . At the end of the helical screw the gap is very less which compresses the crushed seeds to extract all the oil. The oil cake then comes out of the other end of the chamber cage.

Why:
In the rural sector of Nepal like Humla district, people do not consume mustard oil; they consume oil from seeds of other grains and Okhar (Walnut) and have to walk long distances to expel the oil. They do it on a Silauto at home itself. To the oil expelling easier for them a portable oil expeller may help a lot.

Research:
The pitch of the screw is to be determined. It shall be looked what variations in the grain size can be adapted to an expeller. Also, the oil cake should be examined as to how well the expeller works and what percentage of oil is extracted. The material of expeller should also be studied to minimize the health impacts.

Supplementary:
Solar Powered portable oil expeller can not only be popular in rural sector but also in the health conscious crowd in urban sector. The power requirement, size of the panel and battery and cost should be calculated and studied. It will only work if the expeller is still portable after adding solar panel and rechargeable batteries.

Marketing:
The initial target market for the product will be rural sectors of Nepal. We can work to find donations from NGOs and INGOs to try and make the product cheaper for the poor people. For the solar powered expeller health conscious urban people can be targeted. The distribution in rural sector will be done initially by own and later by giving dealerships to the local community, who will also be trained to look after the maintenance of the expeller.

Idea:
Portable solar powered grass cutter

How:
The basic working principle will be similar to electrical hair cutting/ shaving razor. There will be a cylinder with helical screws, which is powered by DC power from rechargeable battery. The cylinder rotates and grass is cut. The battery can either be recharged electrically or by solar power. It can also be thought as a scaled down version of lawn mower.

Why:
A research shows that a woman in hilly area of Nepal spends an average of 274 days in a year to take care of the livestock the family owns. The labor productivity in livestock sector of Nepal is very less because of lack of modern livestock farming technologies. This grass cutter can provide some relief in the painful grass cutting process for women and will be of special importance for people keeping livestock for commercial purpose.

Research:
The power required and the optimum design of helical screw should be calculated. Also, the efficiency and battery life needs to be calculated.

Supplementary:
Further efforts to improve the efficiency should be made. Also, we can similarly automate other equipments used in agriculture.

Marketing:
The target market of the product will mainly be people doing commercial farming and livestock farming. Also, the people from urban areas who have lawn in their house can be targeted. Also, the common farmers can be targeted, especially, later on when the cost can be brought down once the research and development cost is recovered.

Idea:
Automatic Corn dispenser and Seats in agricultural tractor

How:
The walking tractors are slowly replacing plough in agricultural sector of Nepal. In the hilly areas, the walking tractors are used since the topography does not allow other tractors to be used. I have seen most of such walking tractors come without a seat and people walk all day long pushing the tractor. It should not cost more money and energy to add a seat to the tractor. The only concern will be the added weight of the driver, which can be kept to optimum after minimum research work on the appropriate length of the lever. Also, to reduce human labor, we can add automatic corn/wheat dispenser on the tractor which eliminates the need of an additional person walking behind the tractor to dispense corn or wheat. The dispenser can wither be controlled mechanically by a gear mechanism or electronically by using timer control. The dispenser can also be added to the traditional ploughs.

Why:
The dispenser will help to increase the efficiency in agriculture where as the seat will make it ergonomically better.

Research:
The length of the optimum lever for the seat and the impact of additional weight on the ploughing effect of tractor need to be calculated. For the corn dispenser, a gear mechanism can be employed to drop the coin after fixed interval. For an electronic solution, a timer control circuit can be designed. We can chose among the options looking at cost and effectiveness.

Supplementary:
The corn dispenser can be attached to the traditional ploughs too. Other parts of the walking tractor can also be assembled and the tractor itself can be assembled in the coming days.

Marketing:
The target market of the product will mainly be people doing commercial farming. The existing tractor owners as well as the tractor manufacturers can both be targeted. For existing tractor owners, we can bring a scheme that if they buy our corn dispenser, we will fix seat on their tractors for free. Various government agricultural farms can also be a target market.

Idea:
ATM paper reuse

How:
Whenever we visit ATMs we see a lots of paper slips thrown all over the place. Most of the times people press yes when asked, if they need a slip for the transaction, the simple reason behind it being, it is for free. My first idea is to just ad an innovation to the process, and charge people a very low cost (may be Rs.1) for every slip they want. That will prompt them to look at their balance in the screen itself instead of printing a slip, and for those who really need a slip; Rs. 1 should not be a big deal. The money collected from this process can be used by the banks to reuse/recycle these paper slips. We know that, if we keep the ATM slip for several days, the ink print goes on fading away slowly. There is a way to deink the paper in a faster way. It can be done either by heating or passing steam or by a chemical process. I am not yet quite sure of how exactly this is to be done. But my idea is to keep such recycling (making paper ready for reuse) machine in every ATMs. When people look at the receipt, instead of tearing and throwing the paper, they will put it in the recycler where the paper is deinked and is ready for reuse. If required, we can change the type of ink and paper currently being used.

Why:
This small move can save lots of trees in the long run. This will help in conserving environment in two ways, one by saving the trees and other by reducing paper waste.

Research:
The process of deinking needs some research. And we can also do research on volatile inks. Other aspects of the machine like how to insert paper, what if the paper is folded, how to send the recycled paper to the ATM machine are also to be researched.

Supplementary:
This technology can further be spread to other papers too. It may be quite useful for managers in offices too, to recycle their papers instead of shredding it.

Marketing:
We shall target one or two banks initially. We can install some machines for free in the trial period with our company s brand name written on the machine. This will help us generate publicity and help in finding other customers. We can sell the products with adequate profit margin as our major customers will be large banks and corporate houses. We can also work out to find a bank that will sponsor for the research and manufacturing and we can give our products for free to them.