Space Apps Challenge 2017

The Problem we saw

The world is urbanizing at an alarming rate. With the population of the earth estimated to reach 9.7 Billion people by 2050, it is the urban centres that will face the biggest issues. In our quest to find out what problem can we address in order to bring us one step closer towards more sustainable cities, we saw one dangerous culprit; Indoor air pollution

With more and more people living in crowded urban spaces, harmful chemicals such as Benzene and Formaldehyde, along with particulate matter in heavily polluted countries, are becoming one of the leading causes of chronic diseases and even mental health issues. We found our problem, but we were in desperate need of hope in order to solve it


The Hope we found

That is when we found an interesting study done by NASA in 1989 on the indoor air cleaning properties of household plants. What they found out was conclusive proof that certain types of plants were extremely effective in removing harmful chemicals and particulate matter from the air. However, we faced another problem.

How do we go about empowering and incentivizing people to grow these plants that would not only benefit them but benefit the society and the environment in such a way that the whole is far greater than the sum of the individual parts?

The Solution: GROVR

To answer that question, we created Grovr.

Grovr is a social game that guides and rewards decentralized vertical farming, for a sustainable community. The game works in 3 simple steps

Step 1: Sow

Using Earth Science data provided by NASA, we are able to provide optimal recommendations on what kind of plants are best to grow in your location. Our goal is to use localized data such as that provided by Scintilla, in the future.

Step 2: Grow

Once a plant is selected, Grovr will guide you step by step on how to grow the plant in the most optimal manner while keeping check on the ever-changing weather conditions.

Completing daily tasks and successfully growing a plant will allow you to earn points.

Step 3: Plow

Once you have accumulated enough points, you can redeem them for interesting awards provided by companies that are willing to contribute their CSR initiative towards those who contribute back to the society and environment.

Finally: Know

Grovr also provides an interactive map of users around you and their contribution to the society. The average contributions are shown in green, while those who contribute above the average will be highlighted. Those that fail to keep up their contributions in the average range will be shown as red. This will provide the social pressure needed to continue contributing through Grovr.

Ultimately, the goal would be to increase the green influence to a point where it is significant enough to cover the whole map and perhaps one day offset air pollution.

So, if you are still wondering how you can contribute to the society,

Consider becoming a Grovr

Sources:

go.nasa.gov/1WsmEAC – NASA study on household plants

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/133/24/2342 - Indoor air pollution and CVD

http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1164/rccm.201006-0937OC - Indoor air pollution and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease

https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1307823/ - Indoor air pollution and Diabetes type 2

Code:

https://github.com/abniyaz/grovr

Team members:

Madin Maseeh – International and Strategic studies, University Malaya

Ibrahim Fathih – Civil Engineering, University Malaya

Maish Maseeh – Science and Technology, University Malaya

Abdulla Niyaz – Software Engineering, Help University