Extracurriculars & Social Work

The homeless situation in my city, Kolkata is getting worse, and an estimated 70,000 such people are there. According to World Bank, around 4-9% of them are below poverty line. Moreover, almost 1.5 Million underprivileged people live in slums scattered in different locations across the city. They are often found as the victims of road accidents and violence. Homeless people, staying roadside, are increasingly becoming easy targets for criminals and are in urgent need of getting rescued and treated. Every day, there’s news of such people getting robbed, beaten, or dying in road accidents.

For this, I used my background in tech and data analysis and collaborated with a leading nonprofit Hive India with a similar goal. My mission was to get the news of such accidents at the earliest, rescue and rush them to hospitals to provide medical attention and save precious lives. My core responsibility within the organization was to formulate strategies aimed at enhancing its operational efficiency. Basically the objective was to minimize the critical time interval between accidents and the transportation of the injured to hospitals.

Hive India faced resource constraints with only a limited number of ambulances. These problems made it challenging to effectively cater to the high volume of accidents, fueled by Kolkata's infamous traffic congestion. My proposed solution involved strategically positioning ambulances in key locations across the city, where accident frequency was notably higher. Collaborating with local police and utilizing accident data, we identified these critical spots.

I crafted a heatmap of the city, drawing on data from various police stations and anonymous questionnaires distributed among the public. The insights derived from these efforts were visualized through Excel plots, providing a clear representation of accident hotspots. This data-driven approach led to the identification of six strategic locations for ambulance placement.

This, indeed, proved to be a game-changer. By situating ambulances in these identified high-risk areas, Hive India significantly reduced response times. During the festive season in Kolkata, which is famous for its Durga puja with an average of 200-300k footfall at each pandal daily, Hive India rotated its 10-12 rescue vehicles across the city. In addition to the primary objective of accident response, I undertook a parallel initiative with Hive India, aimed at providing clothing to the underprivileged during winter. Through door-to-door collections of reusable clothing, we managed to gather 450 pieces of clothing, impacting the lives of more than 300 individuals.

This experience was a crucible for my personal and professional growth. It taught me the importance of teamwork, honed my interpersonal skills, and imparted a sense of composure under pressure. The realization that my efforts directly contributed to saving lives magnified the gravity of my responsibilities. The relatively small scale of Hive India enabled me to work closely with senior members, offering a steep learning curve.