Why GoGrocy, developed by an NIT Rourkela student, decided to focus on Tier-II and Tier-III cities 

From the start, the main aim of the team behind GoGrocy, the Odisha-based start-up, was to focus on Tier-II and Tier-III cities alone. Currently, they are present in Sunabeda and Jeypore areas 
Delivering food | (Pic: Internet)
Delivering food | (Pic: Internet)

Right off the bat, Girish Vaisyaraj tells us that yes, there is no innovation involved in GoGrocy, but he also reminds us that people from Tier II and Tier III cities can't wait for a BigBasket, Grofers and so on to make their way to small towns. And it is to serve Sunabeda and Jeypore that this delivery start-up was started on the day the lockdown was announced — March 24. "A team of my batchmates and juniors who are web and app developers and UI/UX designers got together and we designed the website in four days flat," says the student of NIT Rourkela. And they were all clear about one thing, they were not doing this for profit.

Girish Vaisyaraj | (Pic: GoGrocy)

What differentiates GoGrocy from other start-ups is that they have high-quality standards, which really comes in handy in these COVID times. We are told that they had enlisted as many as ten kirana stores in a bid to promote local and small businesses and now, they have cut the list down to two. "First of all, it was difficult to get them on board because people here are not very technology-friendly. But then we found that a few stores we had listed were falling short in regards to proper packaging, quality and so on, so we had to cut down to just two," informs the 21-year-old. These two are nodal centres for other kirana stores that have all the products a household would need.  

A delivery fee is applicable to any order that is less than `500 but Girish assures us that the delivery fee goes directly to the three delivery executives they have hired. "Before them, I used to personally deliver all the groceries," shares Girish. But things are looking better since they have started delivering food and medicines as well. They have taken over 4,500 orders till date and are open for more orders.

Screenshot from the app | (Pic: GoGrocy)

But this is not all that Girish, who is pursuing his final year of Electronics and Communication Engineering, is up to. Fascinated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its power, in 2019, he had developed a deep learning-based Loitering Detection System, an algorithm that can detect loiterers in a given space, like airports, in real-time and track them across camera networks. And for these COVID times, he devised another algorithm that, when coupled with a thermal camera, he claims is more accurate, scalable and can be seamlessly brought into production. "It can detect if a person is wearing a mask, following social distancing norms and if they are coughing," shares the Jeypore-born. And only data of the offenders is stored. And now, he is making sure that the word about his algorithm spreads and it helps us through this situation.

Girish has won:
- First prize at the Innovative Design Project (a part of ISRO's birth centenary celebrations)
- Runners-up at Myntra-Jabong HackerRamp
- Finalist at GE Precision Hackathon

For more on them, check out gogrocy.in

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