Watch: AI-based machine checks quality of food tribal kids are served in Maharashtra school

An artificial intelligence-based machine is helping tribal students of a school in Maharashtra gauge whether the quality of food they are being served as part of the mid-day meals is good or not. The device, backed by smart vision, scans each plate held up in front of it and tracks its nutrition, meal quality, quantity, and its impact on the child's growth. It also tracks the BMI (body mass index) of the children regularly, looking for signs of malnutrition.

The machine is currently installed in Todsa Ashram School in Maharashtra's Etapalli village.

"When I used to come to this all-girls' Ashram School, I used to feel that they lack nutrition. When we had a preliminary BMI analysis, we found that 61 girls out of the 222 were malnourished," Shubham Gupta, Assistant Collector of Etapalli and Project Director of Integrated Tribal Development Project told news agency ANI. "Meals are provided here thrice a day - breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Quantity of the food is up to the mark, and we also follow the menu. So, we wanted to ascertain the cause," he added explaining the need to install the AI-based device.

To use this device, students have to step onto it with a plate of food to activate facial recognition. It then records the current, weight, height of the child, and BMI. The machine then scans the food on the plate, identifies the items, and forms an estimate of its nutritional value such as the food weight, protein, calories, carbs, and even the temperature of the meal.

The artificial intelligence-powered device helps the school to maintain a digital copy of every student's health record which can be accessed from the dashboard.