Neil Deshmukh: PlantumAI
PlantumAI — offline crop-disease diagnosis app; VocalEyes.
On his family's farm in India, Deshmukh saw crop disease go undiagnosed. PlantumAI lets a farmer photograph a leaf and get an on-device diagnosis and treatment suggestion with no internet, field-tested with plant pathologists at an Indian agricultural university. His VocalEyes app describes scenes aloud for blind users. He won the International BioGENEius Challenge and a Barron Prize in 2019 and was in TIME's Davos 2020 list of young inventors.
IP note
Code made freely available to non-profits; no patent.
Recognition
BioGENEius Challenge 2019; Barron Prize 2019; TIME Davos 2020 list.
What this means for a student inventor in India
[Editor: 120–200 words connecting this story to the Indian route — Section 6 (any true inventor may apply), provisional vs complete specification, disclosure at fairs (Section 31), renewals, and who owns what when a school is involved. Link to the relevant MYCrave guide.]
Related young innovators
- Trisha Prabhu — ReThink
- Nick D'Aloisio — Summly
- Nilay Kulkarni — Ashioto
Sources
[Editor: list the 2–4 primary sources from the research notes for this entry, with the date checked.]
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