13/04/2022
The genesis of Aumsat reads like a potboiler straight out of the movies. Riddhish soni, one of the founders, was working as a scientist on the Chandrayaan 2 lunar mission with ISRO, when his team was tasked with the responsibility of searching for water on the moon. Though water was first discovered on the Moon by the Radar of a US SPY satellite named Clementine in 1994, the discovery was further validated by the Chandrayaan 1 lunar mission of India in 2009.
Unlike Archimedes’ Eureka moment which happened in water, Riddhish’s was about water: "If we have the technology to detect water signatures on the moon, why can’t we apply this technology on earth observation satellites to discover, prospect and target underground resources in drought hit areas of India?"
And that is how AUMSAT was born. Riddhish and Chetan started to develop satellite data applications that would design water targeting, monitoring and prospecting systems for irrigation. Their carefully chosen team turned problem solvers and solution finders by bringing together geomatics, predictive analytics, remote sensing, object detection, and statistics for the smart water sector.
As part of the AIC ISB's Impact Accelerator cohort, Riddhish and Chetan, who have both trained under ISRO - Indian Space Research Organization, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), Google, and the Harvard school of Design, are quite literally creating waves in the Smart Water space.
Atal Innovation Mission I-Venture at ISB DLabs Indian School of Business
