Telangana will soon have an Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven tool to identify substance abuse among teenagers.
United We Care, a Hyderabad-based deep tech startup, has developed a parental screening tool, a chatbot solution, amid the growing drug menace particularly among school and college students in the State.
This will then be launched by police departments in the state, Director of Telangana State Anti- Narcotics bureau Sandeep Shaldaliya said.
The tool was explained and a demo was displayed during the initiatives for drug-free Hyderabad organised by Hyderabad City Police and Hyderabad City Security Council (HCSC) on March 3.
Through the tool, parents and teachers will have to answer 39 questions under 13 different domains pertaining to their teenager’s behavioural patterns,” explained Sourav Banerjee, Chief Technology Officer of the start up. These domains include physical, emotional, cognitive psychomotor changes, social withdrawal, absenteeism, appetite and sleep related changes, changes in peer group, academic performance, unaccounted expenditure, guardedness and physical well-being.
Based on the score, guardians will have the option to connect with police officials and mental health experts via the platform to immediately address the concerns. The startup has with partnered with Dr. Samir Parikh, Fortis National Mental Health Program, Fortis Healthcare, for developing this platform.
According to Mr Banerjee, the data pertaining to children will be highly encrypted. “The data will be protected under the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDT) Act 2023 and will only accessible by the parents,” he said.
Moreover, personal data of the child will not be shared for the investigative procedure. The tool aims to address challenges across four major domains including early identification of the early signs and symptoms of the addiction, timely clinical management, self intervention and follow up and relapse management. “Over 90-93% cases go into relapse, however, identification and management is not done,” Mr. Banerjee said.
Workshops will be given to teachers and further teachers who will then train the parents on taking the questionnaire, officials informed.
Interestingly, the chatbot will be available in 29 languages including Telugu. “If this model is a success in Telangana, we can also then launch it across the country,” said Rama Devi Lanka Director, Emerging Tech Wing.
Anti-drug committees in schools
The event that saw attendance from about 1000 people including managements of top schools from across the tri-commissionerates of Telangana - Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda alongside the police officials also proposed ‘Anti-drug committees’ in schools. “Nitty-gritties are yet to be discussed with the schools but as of now we think these committees could have two teachers, one non-teaching, and will keep changing every 6 months,” Hyderabad Commissioner of Police and Chairman of HCSC K Sreenivasa Reddy said.
Moreover, forums will be constituted to monitor the progress of anti-drug committees from various schools in each school which will include officials from education dept, women and child department and non-government organisations.
Highlighting that most drug programs across the globe focus on the 10% accidental users, ignoring the 90% intentional users of drugs, the officials informed that Hyderabad was selected among 500 cities in the world to test “The blueprint’, the initiative to impart life skills to school students and deal with drug menace in the state though a collaborative effort.
