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With water as fuel innovation, Hyd Gas is looking to radically change the LPG industry in India

Rakhi Chakraborty | April 09, 2015 at 11:10 am

“Hydgas is a cooktop that produces its own gas. It uses water as fuel and uses electricity to convert it to hydrogen and oxygen and uses that to cook food. It produces gas as needed, so there is no storage of any gases in Hydgas, which makes it completely safe compared to LPG. It can also be integrated with solar power,” says a proud Riswin M.H., Co-founder and head of operations at Reinwo Labs. Reinwo Labs is a 2014 startup, founded by a team of recent college graduates, focused on discovering and creating clean energy solutions. Hydgas is their flagship product. The name Reinwo Labs is a juxtaposition of the young founding team’s outlook. It stands for ‘REINventing the World’ explains Riswin.
In their second year in college, the present founders of Reinwo Labs were tinkering around making small websites and Android apps. Today they are poised to bring about a massive, and much needed, change with their potentially revolutionary product Hyd Gas- which splits regular tap water into hydrogen and oxygen, which can then be burned to cook food in hotels and homes. “It’s a clean, cheap and safer alternative to LPG and all other types of cooking,”

Hyd Gas’s invention is a classic example of the power of sheer chance. In their third year of college, dissatisfied with their digital tinkering and yearning to make an impact but unsure of what to do, the team came together to participate in an inter collegiate racing competition. Each team had to build a car to race in the famous Buddh circuit. While researching on how to develop a decent battery for their car, they discovered hydrogen to be a consistent by-product throughout all their experiments. Then they started research on renewable energy centred on this epiphany.
Gas distribution in India is notoriously monopolized by the government and a few handpicked agencies. Not only do urban customers suffer abominably when it comes to availability and affordability, there is deplorable rural penetration of the same. The consequences are at best incredible inconvenience and at worst disastrous kitchen accidents when people try to substitute homemade flames due to the lack of cylinders. This was the core concern behind manufacturing a product like Hyd Gas. “In India, the gas distribution is centralized in hands of big companies. We are trying to make it as de-centralized as possible,” Riswin shares.

Hyd Gas

The USP of the product, which the team is banking on to market, is the zero risk involved. “Since it uses only water as fuel, the pollution is practically 0%. The by-product of burning hydrogen is just water. And there is no gas storage which makes it completely safe,” he continues, “It’s cooking made free and clean.”
Reinwo Labs is targeting two kinds of consumers for Hyd Gas. Riswin says, “Firstly, the restaurants and hotels. An ordinary hotel uses an average of 3-4 LPG cylinders a day. We hope that with this rate of consumption they will find Hyd Gas to be a lucrative substitute. Our second potential customers are home consumers – the LPG market of home customers is really high and they are our primary market.
Initially the product will be sold only to hotels. More R&D has to be put on to the home version of the product.”
The path to developing a fully functioning product has been strewn with difficulties. The relative inexperience of the team was a considerable deterrent initially. As was the fact that Hyd Gas is the first product of its kind, without any kind of precedent to guide its growth. “As it is a one of a kind product, we had limited references for developing it. Also we are trying to reduce the price before we start selling to households,” he continues, “Technical challenges were high during the early stages of development, but now those have been addressed. We are now faced with challenges are in fields like marketing and innovation.”
Though they have only one client at present- the cafeteria of CUSAT (where four of the five team members have studied) – Riswin is pleased with the market response they have received thus far. “The market is responding quite well. We have already made deals with some hotel corporates and a handful of restaurants for making them as our initial customers. A number of NGO’s have expressed avid interest in Hyd Gas as well,” he lists.
For the first two months of its inception, Reinwo Labs was self-funded. Things started looking up soon after. “Then we got some initial funding from Kerala State Electricity Board(KSEB) and Startup Village. Final talking with the investors are currently ongoing for the next stage of funding,” shares Riswin.
According to Riswin, though the hardest part about becoming an entrepreneur is the responsibility- “The hardest part of it all is making decisions, from the smallest to the biggest. As we were new to everything including technology, we faced lots of problems in every aspect”- he doesn’t think the team has had to make any sacrifices. “About sacrifices, we love what we do, so there are none,” he winks.
The whole team- Vimal Gopal, Vijeesh TV, Nithin Mohan, Praveen Sridhar and of course Riswin- love being an entrepreneur because, “We work for ourselves. We can do whatever we think.” Someday soon they plan to change the world. For now, “We need to find a way to balance the needs of customers as well as grow the company in a smart way,” smiles Riswin.

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bee man of Maharashtra

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Here is the bee man of Maharashtra

Published On: Fri, Apr 10th, 2015

Science | By sashirekha

A study in the UK has revealed that honeybees contribute £200 million a year with the services they indirectly enhance through their activities, and £1 billion with what they pollinate. Similar studies are available in few other countries, but the function of bees in the food chain is the same everywhere. In the US, some species of bees have virtually disappeared, the European Union has admitted their risk of extinction, and in India the number of the insects has drastically decreased – some point out RFR emitted by mobile phones and towers as one of the main causes. And this alarming fall in bee numbers is alarming everyone. Given these assumptions, talking about ‘bee effect’ to indicate the massive consequences that can result from a relatively small cause, does not seem an exaggeration..This is why Shrikant’s venture is not only about producing honey, but is directed towards broader outcomes.

Two years ago, after graduating from IIM Kozhikode, he took up a five-day hobby course on beekeeping at a government institute in Pune, and fell in love with the striped honey-makers. “I learnt some of the most amazing facts about bees and the role they play in the ecosystem by means of cross pollination.” This opened my eyes not only on the key role bees play in nature, but also on the potential they have in changing the lives of people at the bottom of the pyramid,” says Shrikant. In the last few months, Bee The Change has trained more than 500 farmers and forest populations, and currently its network counts 50 trainees. “As part of our operations, we meet farmers in rural areas and provide them with bee boxes and free training. Then, once they start bee-keeping, we buy back the honey at a pre-determined price.Ours is a not-for-profit outfit, and we generate income by selling this honey to retailers under our own brand.”
For farmers, the proceedings of honey and wax sales are only one of the numerous gains. Bees are an investment with high returns: the crop yield increases and products become healthier. “Bee-keeping and pesticides don’t really go hand in hand because chemicals cause the insects to die. So the farmers are asked to refrain from using pesticides while rearing the bees,” explains Shrikant. This automatically reduces the use of pesticides. Twenty-five Bee the Change trainees are working towards obtaining the certification for organic farming, which they usually apply for in groups generating cooperative work. It is not easy to persuade farmers to take up the challenge because beekeeping requires an investment. Says Shrikant:“A bee box costs around Rs.5000 and bees start producing honey only after a few months. Usually, in areas where we haven’t worked before, one out of ten farmers is willing to keep bees for a year. But once this farmer shows an exponential increase in crop production, others follow.”Also, each bee colony can give as much as two more bee colonies through division each year providing additional income.
Srikanth’s organisation works with populations in the forests a little differently:“We train them in techniques of natural honey hunting, which consists in extracting honey from existing combs without hurting the bees. This allows them to increase their income, and bees to be preserved in the wild.” Shrikant says that there are very few organizations working on a similar models, but most of them working only with farmers, whereas Bee the Change includes populations living in the forests.“Also, these organizations have priced their products in the premium range; whereas we have kept our product accessible,”says he. Lack of training facilities for bee keeping in Maharashtra, unavailability of bee colonies, difficulties in maintaining a system of support for trainees, getting over negative preconceptions against bees, language barriers, and lack of funds are some of the challenges Bee The Change had to go through. However, Shrikant says: “We dealt with these problems by getting ourselves trained first. We work with experts who help us with training and support, and importing colonies from elsewhere. We believe that exemplifying success stories is the best way of spreading awareness and gaining social interest.”
Currently, the number of colonies in nature is very low. This results in the costs of mobilizing and installing these colonies is much higher than the price of the colonies itself.“We are trying to rear the bee colonies in nature, breed them, and multiply them through our network to such levels that economies of scale can be exploited to increase our operational efficiency,”says Srikanth. Moreover, to further diversify the sources of income, Bee The Change is also planning to start training groups of women to produce organic honey and wax-based cosmetics.The relevance of what Bee The Change is doing is undoubtedly huge and the team, which counts 20 volunteers, seems to have a great time in the process. Shrikant quotes Steve Jobs when he concludes:“Atleast make a dent in the universe, else, why even be here.” However, in a venture where resources are not abundant and ambition must scale up ten times faster that the venture itself, not a dent, but a revolution is the goal.

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New way to prevent dengue fever found

PTI | Apr 1, 2015, 05.12 PM IST

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Dengue is a viral infection spread between humans by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Dengue causes flu-like symptoms, including intense headaches and joint pains.

MELBOURNE: Australian scientists have discovered a novel way to prevent the spread of the dengue virus, a mosquito-borne deadly disease that currently has no approved vaccine.

Researchers at the University of Melbourne along with international collaborators found a new way to block the dengue virus in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes using the insect bacterium, Wolbachia, and have for the first time provided projections of its public health benefit.

Dengue is a viral infection spread between humans by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Dengue causes flu-like symptoms, including intense headaches and joint pains.

Professor Cameron Simmons, from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity said that the discovery could lead to improved strategies to reduce the incidence of dengue.

"We did a 'real world' experiment and allowed mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia and uninfected mosquitoes to feed on the blood of Vietnamese dengue patients," Simmons said.

"Our team then measured how efficiently Wolbachia blocked dengue virus infection of the mosquito body and saliva, which in turn stops them from spreading the virus between humans," Simmons said.

Researchers developed a mathematical model of dengue virus transmission and used the experimental results as a basis to predict how well Wolbachia would reduce the intensity of dengue transmission under a variety of scenarios.

"We found that Wolbachia could eliminate dengue transmission in locations where the intensity of transmission is low or moderate. In high transmission settings, Wolbachia would also cause a significant reduction in transmission," said Simmons.

"Our findings are important because they provide realistic measures of the ability of Wolbachia to block transmission of the dengue virus and provide precise projections of its impact on dengue infections," Simmons said.

"Our results will enable policy makers in dengue-affected countries to make informed decisions on Wolbachia when allocating scarce resources to dengue control," Simmons said.

Dengue continues to be a major public health problem in Asia and Latin America. Estimates suggest more than 100 million cases occur globally each year, researchers said.

The study was published in the Journal of Science Translational Medicine.