Indian innovationist

Meet Anup Vijapur: The Rural Innovator Who Built A Road, A Cashew Nut Grading Machine And Wind Turbines For Trains.

Anup Vijapur stands out because of his passion towards social good. Empathy towards the marginalized was something Vijapur always felt and today he is an innovator who is working on some amazing projects that can simplify the lives of many farmers. 

His first milestone…

He was a mechanical Engineer but found his passion in Computer Science. It was during this, Vijapur’s efforts came into limelight when he constructed a road in a nearby village. In 2009, while returning from Hospet to Hubli, he noticed a stretch of road that was totally smudged, covered with mud and bred mosquitoes due to the stagnant dirty water
After raising a sum of Rs. 2,000 from generous funders in two days time, he managed to clear the blocked road and covered it with red soil to make it walk-able. But he was not happy with this. He clicked ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of the road and presented them to a Municipality officer. A week later, he saw a new tar road under construction

Wind Turbines for Trains

His college project, which was focused on generating power from wind in a moving train, won him many awards. The idea stuck his mind during a train journey.
“I thought that if all the wind energy which is generated by moving trains can be put to use to create power, it would be great. I created one meter wide and two feet long wind turbines and a working prototype which functioned perfectly. I just could not get the permission to actually put it to use on trains due to a lot of legal formalities,” he says.

Cashew Nut grading machine

He joined Nanopix and got an opportunity to work on a cashew nut grading machine.
After some months of research, he came up with a groundbreaking technology that grades cashew nuts in seven different categories while the existing machines in the market can just grade in two or three categories. This is probably the first of its kind in the world that can grade around 70-75 kgs nuts per hour according to their size, colour, defects, etc.

A device to check the drowsiness of drivers.

Vijapur, along with founder of Nanopix, started working on a device that can check the drowsiness level of the driver by tracking his or her facial expressions. If found sleepy, the system will inform the back end and an immediate intervention can be done before it is too late.
In few months, he will also have few patented technologies under his name.

Thus, we congratulate Anup for his staggering innovations and wish him all the best for all his future projects.