This Vasai Ganpati has a techie mouse

This Vasai household doesn't believe tradition and technology cannot go hand in hand. Neither do they believe a mouse is merely Lord Ganesha's ride and would just be placed next to Him. The Kale family in Vasai has made a Robot Rat, which they call Undir Mama (Uncle Rat) with all the technological genius. It is made from a system of interrelated computing devices called the Internet of Things (IoT). The system provides unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without having to do man-to-man or man-to-machine interaction.

The robot allows devotees to take selfie with Ganpati idol and once the devotee okays the picture, the robot drops prasad on the devotee's hands along with a data protection message. The robot interacts with devotees briefly and chants 'Ganpati Bappa Morya' before it shuts down. The same is repeated for another devotee,

"The idea was to portray how unsafe and unauthenticated data is harmful for human consumption and at the same time offer a traditional approach to it. Undir Mama as a creation is an amalgamation of technology, trend and tradition," said Yuvraj Kale, the brain behind the robot.

Yuvraj took one month to develop the software and hardware while his sister-in-law made the structure of rat using paper and cardbo ard with messages of Reuse, Reduce and Recycle. "We displayed all the social media from where data can be compromised and used against us. This is going to be the next big thing, so we might as well ask Bappa to save us from the urban epidemic," said Sailee Kale.