In January, tourists in Manali will be capable of experiencing an adrenaline rush while riding a giant swing powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), which was developed by the startup India incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi and is believed to be the world’s first-of-its-kind.
The startup India project named “ManaliSwing,” founded by four adventure enthusiast engineer friends, experienced in rock climbing, and mountains, has finished its human jump testing and is in the midst of submitting five patents for the concept and design. They claim to have invented a giant swing equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) that would offer “impeccable” security to jumpers with over 100 jump styles.
One of the team members claimed that the Dubai government has already approached them about launching the swing there, and they are also in discussion with interested Swiss organisations.
“We will offer one of the world’s most creative and safe giant swings like bungee jumping but instead of going down on rubber bungee cord, one freefall is followed by a giant swing on dual dynamic ropes, with over 100 possible jump styles allowing one to experience the adrenaline of 70m free fall with AI promising impeccable safety like never before,” said Utsav Soni, one of the founders, to PTI. He also added, “The plan is to launch it in Manali on New Year. The tourists will have to pay Rs 3,000 for each jump. The cost will include transportation from a certain point and professional photography and videography service”.
At IIT Hyderabad, the Indian startup entrepreneur conducted a large-scale test with 1,000 dummy jumps before successfully completing human jumps in the presence of IRATA professionals.
Moreover, the AI will provide optimum permissions for jumping while monitoring participant and jump master performance across millions of data points. A Jump Master and his team will have an advantage in assuring that no injury, incident, or causality may happen on the site by having a highly intelligent AI. It becomes the AI start up in India. For illustration, if the jump protocol or international standards aren’t followed, AI will not allow the jump.
“The good part is that we don’t need to have some special hi-tech cameras and expensive setups to do this. This can be franchised anywhere in the world with an existing standard hi-res CCTV security camera feed,” stated Soni. He claimed their swing start up investment has the potential to disrupt the whole adventure tourism industry.
The team has plans to launch the second similar AI influenced giant swing start-up in Goa and then take the technology to other countries.
India, the youngest nation in the world with 50% of its population under 25, is ranked 96th in the world according to the Adventure Tourism Competitive Index (ATDI) 2020. Since the past four years, it has also constantly decreased. Compared to its neighbour, countries Bhutan (14th) and Nepal (67th), India performs far worse. Especially given the fact that demand for adventure activities has increased by 178% over the past three years.
“Somewhere, India has failed to cultivate the culture of innovation in extreme adventure tourism. It’s an Incredible India but not innovative India in terms of adventure tourism compared to its global potential. We already have been approached by the Dubai government and talks are on at Switzerland too but the plan is to launch in India first,” Soni said. “We approached IIT Mandi with the idea and three months later we were an incorporated company with the first working prototype,” he added also.
The initiative, which was first conceptualized over five years ago, was officially informed as a startup India last year.
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