A Bengaluru-based engineering student, Pratik Mohapatra, has won Microsoft's 2019 AI for Good Idea Challenge for his AI-powered app OrganSure, which helps match organ donors around the world in real-time, Microsoft said.

“While watching a web series that revolves around organ donation, I realised the pain and emotional trauma people go through when waiting for a transplant. I started digging deeper about the problem and spoke to doctors at leading hospitals in Bengaluru to comprehend the magnitude of the issue,” Mohapatra said.

About 135,860 organs were donated globally in 2016, a rise of 7.25 percent from 2015, pointed out Microsoft on a post on its website. However, nearly 20 people die every day in the US and many more around the world while waiting for an organ transplant, it said.

Various factors have to be mitigated in organ transplantation before matching a recipient with the donor and 'first-come, first-served' logic may not be applicable here, which motivated Mohapatra to help conceptualise OragnSecure, which is in the early stages of alpha testing.

“I came across the Microsoft AI for Good Idea Challenge on my LinkedIn feed and found it to be the ideal platform to take my idea to fruition. I filled up the application on the website and went through multiple rounds of submissions and presentations. Detailing my vision, technical architecture and the impact my app would have on society was challenging and exciting at the same time," Mohapatra explained.

AI for Good Idea Challenge encourages data scientists, developers and students to use AI to tackle some of society's greatest obstacles and offers prizes up to $ 10,000 worth of Azure credits, hardware from Microsoft, and a chance to present their ideas on the AI Lab, said Microsoft.

Microsoft said Mohapatra's OrganSecure aims to achieve two main things: first, to get more people to become organ donors and second, ensuring people in need of organs get it at the right time.

The app gives out all the relevant information regarding organ donation and helps them sign up to become a donor. Organ receivers will benefit from the AI-powered real-time ranking on the donor list and the expected timeline to move to the top of the list.

The app uses Azure Machine Learning to predict the match of an organ and estimate the rank and time required for an awaiting recipient, based on various parameters that govern organ donation.

Mohapatra, a computer science engineering student at RV College of Engineering in Bengaluru, had also won the Big Data award at Imagine Cup 2018 for a drug authentication app that he developed, DrugSafe.