MARGAO: This young man used to travel from Carmona to Calangute on a daily basis and suddenly noticed that several street lights were lit even after 10 am. That disturbed him a lot and instead of criticising the government, he thought of inventing something, which could resolve the issue pertaining to street lights and thus invented the special device called Solar Switch.
Believe it or not, the 33-yr-old young inventor Samson D’Costa's Solar Switch will not only save energy pertaining to street lights in
Goa, but it will solve one of the most troubling issues to the electricity department of Goa. Solar Switch is totally a made-in- Goa product and costs Rs 4000.
This Solar Switch device will be installed all over Goa in the next few months. The speciality of this device is that it will put on the street lights automatically after sunset and will switch off at sunrise. It is not a timer. But a device that will control the maximum number of a fixtures at one point of time. And hence, the issue of handling the street lights will be resolved completely.
Speaking to GT, Samson D'Costa said, "We have succeeded in our project. The first-ever unit of the Solar Switch device installed at Konkan Railway station at Margao is controlling the entire complex of KRC for the last three years. We have not received a single complaint from the authority since its installation," he claimed.
He further informed that presently the Electricity Department has also installed the Solar Switch unit invented by Samson at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao, Davorlim, Porvorim, Churchorem, Shiroda and at BITS Pilani on a trial basis. But, to date, he has not received any complaint about the failure of his product.
"Presently our one unit of Solar Switch installed at Ravindra Bhavan, Margao handles nearly 56 lights fixture. Besides, we have installed one unit at Davorlim, which takes care of 60 light fixtures. Titan, Verna to Dabolim Airport street lights are controlled by a single unit of Solar Switch", he added.
This Solar Switch unit has one uniqueness called search protection and if any time there is high voltage it can control it and escape the harm.
"It all started in 2016 when I was working for the Bangalore based company called IDA Softwares and I had a charge of Goa. I used to travel from Carmona to Calangute on a regular basis. At that point
I noticed that many street lights were illuminated during the day also. I thought of inventing something which will resolve this issue of street lights," he stated.
The actual cost of the unit was Rs 4000 rupees but overall cost was raised to 5 to 6 lakhs at the initial stage. "Initially I had no money to invest nor I had any investor. But my father Robison helped me a lot. After that, I rushed Konkan Railway Corporation (KRC) authorities with the proposal of requesting them to look into my product. KRC gave me an order of just one unit and paid me Rs 4000 rupees. The amount was not even 10 percent of my expenditure," said Samson.
Thereafter he again approached the KRC officials and there he got an order for two more units, which are now installed at Verna and Karwar railway station.
Samson further said, "Thereafter I maintained a low profile for almost two years and was a little disappointed because there was
response to my invention. I took another chance and had two options before me. One was to try for the last time and two if failed to promote my product and then go to UK for better prospects,” he added.
He approached the Power Minister Nilesh Cabral with a proposal and was able to convince the Minister and as a result, Solar Switch units were installed at few places. He succeeded and now has got an order to install 75 more units at different places in Goa.
Samson will supply the units from February 25. "40 percent of the street lights of Goa is on a timer of which efficiency is very weak. Remaining 60 percent of street lights of Goa are handled manually, as a result, we can witness lots of fixtures illuminating at the day time also. The Solar Switch unit is not only energy saving but it is money-saving with regard to maintenance also.
Samson has done his computer engineering from Padr Agnel Engineering College, Verna, and MBA from Meerut, Delhi University. He has his small company called Horivacao, Horizon of Innovations, wherein the office is situated at CSTI, Monavikas English Medium School, Gogol, Margao. His manufacturing unit is at Carmona and and his mother Gloria Shamerita D'Costa are both directors of the company. Five employees are working in his company.
The company specialises in embedded system designs, electro-mechanical projects, and innovations which improves normal lives. The meaning of Horivacao is a fusion of two Portuguese words, 'Horivanto' and 'Innovation", which also means Horizon of innovations. He is the first runners-up at 'Kaun Banega Udyogpati 2016', a National Level Business Competition, organised by CIBA.
In the end, Samson said, "Youth must not run after the jobs. In the initial stages, there is no harm in doing the job but later on one must use that experience to resolve the problems".