Mumbai teens bag award for AI-based system to detect skin cancer

Aasimm Khan, student and Sidharth Jain, student

Two teenagers from the city - Sidharth Jain and Aasimm Khan - have won the prestigious Microsoft Imagine Cup award in the junior category of World Solutions Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for developing a system to detect genital skin cancer. The 17-year-olds, who have bagged the award in the AI for Humanitarian Action category, have applied to patent their Remote Identification and Detection of Genital Skin Cancer - RIDGE product.

Speaking about the system, Sidharth said, "We developed a machine-learning model, executed and deployed it as a mobile app. In this, the image of the lesion is processed and fed into our Deep Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) - trained and tested with 5,000 images - yielding a percentage probability report of the lesion being classified as malignant, benign or premalignant. If malignant, it is further classified within the five main skin cancers with an accuracy of 83 per cent on confusion matrix."

Giving more details, Sidharth said that for further analysis, the patient could use a pressure mapping kit, developed by them, and apply it on the lesion, which delocalises a Non-Newtonian Fluid.

"Using gradient localisation methods we map gel density against pressure to create a 3D support file, which is convoluted with the 3D STL file generated by the lesion's top image to produce a single 3D flexible printing file, and this when printed by the doctor gives a flexible haptic model for accurate tactile feedback," added Aasimm.

He continued, "We are currently working on the accuracy aspect to make it more and more dependable as we plan to introduce it in the market within a couple of years."

It all started when Sidharth lost his grandfather to cancer. "Due to his health condition, he developed bed-sores which turned cancerous and we lost him in just a month's time before we could do much. Early detection of cancer is very important to take good care and hopefully to recover from it," he shared, adding that genital skin cancer was more likely to remain undetected for long due to several factors.

Hence, they feel that RIDGE was more likely to help in this aspect with patients getting a chance to get their suspicious mole diagnosed virtually by a doctor with the AI-based system, which also uses 3-D printing technique for the treating doctor to check the lesion without the patient actually being present for the diagnosis. The two boys, who are currently studying in Std XII of Jamnabai Narsee International School, were guided by On My Own Technology (OMOTEC). Founded in 2016, OMOTEC is a dynamic innovation and research lab that brings Science Technology Research Engineering Art and Math (STREAM) learning to students of all age groups. "Contrary to popular belief in the Indian society that to know means how much a child can produce from what he/she has learnt, we believe it is important to know how much a child is able to apply. It was a challenging project in terms of the project definition as well as to create an interface of different kinds of technology to validate the design prototype. But at the end it was all about application of technical skills like 3D design, machine learning, AI and data analysis for the students to bring it all together," said OMOTEC Chief Mentor, Reetu Jain.