No coding skills, laptop or Internet required to innovate: Naik

HERALD: What is Rung and why this?

RAJEEV NAIK: Rung is a free innovative touch app, made with love in Goa, to build your ideas on embedded systems like the Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, Banana Pi or the Beagle bone Black without a line of code or an Internet connection. Do you know that out of 7.125 billion people on earth, only around 1 per cent possesses software coding skills? That means the remaining 99 per cent do not know to program embedded devices, which is so essential for innovation today. Also, 60 per cent of the earth population does not have access to Internet. So, innovation has become a niche of this 1 per cent, who ends up being hired by conglomerates worldwide. Rung is for the remaining 99 per cent of the earth’s population.

HERALD: So, can anyone innovate now, without software skills or Internet connectivity?

RN: Yes surely 100 per cent. No coding skills, no laptops, no Internet connection. All you need is a Smartphone with the free Rung app loaded, a Raspberry Pi and a Rung SD card. No Internet. Add sensors, add your outputs like motors and you are ready to go.

HERALD:Where can this be used?

RN:You have to think of a problem faced by people or of processes and how you can eliminate or reduce it using technology. Rung can be used for automation: homes, offices, buildings and machines. Farmers can use it for irrigation, greenhouse, aquaponics and others. Other sectors are safety, security, environment, cars, health, hospitality, retail and for any problem under the Sun where you can use sensors, actuators and wired or wireless technologies. LABidIOT (Laboratory for Ideas of Internet of Things), at Silicon Square, Patto, is meant to help you build your ideas and support you through to 

completion.

HERALD: What was your motivation?

RN: The inability of a 5th grader to light up an LED with a Pi started it all. Today students are loaded with so much work; they hardly find time to learn a new programming language or two for embedded devices and be innovative. But many people face problems and have good problem solving skills, most of them,  come up with great ideas to solve these issues, but cannot build prototypes or products due to lack of coding skills. Hardware guys do not know software and software guys don’t touch 

hardware.

HERALD: How was this gap bridged?

RN: ‘Innovation without coding’- got us together. Passion fruit GlobalTech leveraged Six Sigma, lean and value proposition design business model principles to solve problems with technology. We came together to provide a platform for people without coding skills or hardware expertise to build products and to guide them with a lean ecosystem from idea to production. We also designed nodes to connect devices by wireless connectivity without using WiFi or an internet connection. Rung was built by Goan hardware and software engineers. Also, the frontend UI digital art was done by a Goan in Goa. 

HERALD:What is the path forward?

RN: Right now, the app has capability to enable wireless inputs and outputs over a 100 meter radius without WiFi. We will help people with innovative ideas to build their own app with Rung backend, do remote program transfer to the Pi over the cloud and remote switching facilities, if needed. We are building a node with a 1200 m radius without WiFi.