“CIVILIAN DRONES are just a few years away from becoming commonplace,” says high-tech innovator Yashaan Cooper (20). In May, this robotics enthusiast together with Rohit Saluja and Vishank Bhatia — all second-year electronics and communications engineering students of the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Dubai — were shortlisted in the students’ category to compete in the second round of the three-phase ‘Drones for Good Award’ global competition initiated by the government of United Arab Emirates, with a winners’ prize award of AED 1 million (Rs.1.6 crore).

The competition challenges participants to design prototypes of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or remote-controlled drones to deliver civilian services. The finalists will showcase their UAVs at the Government Summit scheduled for February 2015.

The elder of two children of geologist Nari Jimmy and homemaker Binaifer, Yashaan credits his success to his rigorous primary-secondary education in Anand Vidya Vihar, Vadodara, his Parsee lineage and perfectionist mother. “I believe the strict regime I was put through at home and in school coupled with the freedom to be creative, has stood me in good stead. I don’t give up easily and stay focussed,” he says.

Top-ranked last year at the International Autonomous Robotics Challenge (IARC), 2013 staged in Dubai, #8 in IARC at IIT-Kanpur 2014, and #4 at the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)-sponsored Student Design Competition for UAVs for forest fires, team leader Yashaan says: “Our project drone will have an integrated system which will store Google images, operate on artificial intelligence and can be used for navigation, exploration, traffic updates and to deliver parcels. We are currently looking for sponsors to fund our AED 15,000 (Rs.2.45 lakh) project.”

Besides robotics, this young engineer has several other interests. He is an accomplished pianist with certificates of the Trinity College of Music, London, an avid web designer and an ethical hacker. He is also the co-founder of Traderse7en Capital Holdings, a risk assessment management company.

In the long term, Yashaan has ambitious plans to combine robotics research with social entrepreneurship. “I’m exploring ways to design an open-source robotics development platform which will attract people around the world to contribute to apps development. And someday I hope to design robots to aid disabled human beings,” he enthuses.

Way to go, Bro!

Suverchala Kashyap (Vadodara)