This Mahindra University student created an app with facial recognition for contactless attendance  

It was during the pandemic, coupled with his ever-growing interest in solving problems, that Kartikeya Bhardwaj thought of the idea for Chakshu Face Attendance. This the whole story about it
Using the app | (Pic: Chakshu Face Attendance)
Using the app | (Pic: Chakshu Face Attendance)

A few days into the lockdown, Kartikeya Bhardwaj's father came to him with a problem. In an attempt to go contactless, his father’s office had done away with the biometric fingerprint attendance system and the good old writing-your-name-in-an-attendance-register wasn't working. ‘You have dabbled in facial recognition, why don't you create a solution for us?’ he asked the 22-year-old off-handedly. This got Kartikeya thinking hard — he had, in fact, worked on facial recognition while interning with Larsen & Toubro Infotech. So, why not, he asked himself. "I was bored anyway," he laughs as he shares. 

Kartikeya Bhardwaj | (Pic: Chakshu Face Attendance)

So the Mechanical Engineering student of Mahindra University, Hyderabad, worked on a small prototype on Raspberry Pi in June this year, hired three interns to develop an app and, on September 15, Chakshu Face Attendance  a touchless employee and student attendance recording app — was installed in his father's office. "A few days ago, I gave a demonstration at the university as well and they have placed an order for it too," adds the youngster, sounding delighted. 
 

Computer Vision and ML are areas that fascinate Kartikeya and he likes photography and video-making too


So, this is the deal with the Chakshu app. First comes the enrollment, which is basically a database for the employer containing photos, employee ID, shift timings, department details and others. Once the app is downloaded on a device, the employees have to stand in front of a device with the app for two to three seconds and using facial recognition, the software marks their in-time. Similarly, when one manually selects the out mode, then the out-time is recorded. "We also provide a tablet and two mounts (wall and table) because we realised that companies don't want to go out in the market and procure a tablet for the app," points out Kartikeya, who has given 14 demos of the app till date. 

The dashboard | (Pic: Chakshu Face Attendance)

The administrator can access all this information via a web dashboard. Also, every midnight, excel sheets are generated by the software in which the in and out time of every employee is compiled and emailed to the registered email ID. Pretty cool, right? Wait till you hear what he has in mind for the second version. "We want to integrate the app with payroll, HRIS (Human Resource Management System) and more. We want the software to detect attendance patterns as well and display it on our web dashboard in a more interactive way," says the innovator who hails from Jaipur.
 

At the moment he isn't giving higher studies much thought, he wants to take up more problems to solve


"Facial recognition is a huge market in India. Indeed, our face is the new ID and this is biometric 2.0," says Kartikeya. And it looks like with Hyderabad-based Chakshu, he is ready to capitalise on the market. He avers and adds that he wants to scale this venture up as much as he can.

The mounts | (Pic: Chakshu Face Attendance)

What is facial recognition?
- Tech that matches a human face with its digital image  
- The software uses nodal points to measure variables of a person's face
- These include the length of the nose, depth of eye socket and more
- CBSE and Central Railways are using it    

For more on them, check out chakshu.ai

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