I AM Garbage IdeNtifier App: Harnessing AI technology for Greener Rural Communities

COMPOSTELA, DAVAO DE ORO—one of the most flood-prone municipalities in the country—the issue of solid waste management has been one of the biggest factors in the occurrence of rising water levels brought on even by moderate rain. According to the Municipal Environment and Natural Resources Office, schools are the second highest waste-generating sector, next to agriculture, which produces 785.77 kg of waste per day.

"Students really do not know how to segregate their solid waste," Analita D. Arrocena, Solid Waste Management Organization Chairman of Compostela National High School, said. Efforts to raise awareness of proper waste segregation have been robust in the past few years, but all of them have been futile, as seen from the lack of individual responsibility among students and clogged drainage systems.

Unable to classify their own waste, the I AM Garbage IdeNtifier App guides Android users to properly segregate their waste into 4 classifications, namely: biodegradable, recyclable, residual (can no longer be used or recycled), and special waste (hazardous and toxic substances). Using artificial intelligence, a simulation of human intelligence in technology, the app identifies the waste classification of the picture and provides an accuracy percentage and information on the recognized classification.

Free Datasets

In collaboration with the CNHS Robotics Adviser, STEM students of Compostela National High School, and volunteers, the Brigada Eskwela 2023 clean-up drive marked the beginning of the datasets, a collection of waste items, for training a model of I AM GINA.

Uploading and annotating almost a thousand waste pictures, the app development provided little to no cost as it only required manpower and patience to train the AI model of the app—providing an avenue for large-scale adoption.

However, to attain a high level of app accuracy, a challenge is attached, as waste pictures come in various angles and shapes, like crumpled paper, broken bottles, and deformed plastics. This requires a large dataset to accommodate the broad scope of human-generated waste.

Currently, with six models trained in the span of 5 months, the most efficient I AM GINA model calls upon crowdsourcing, collecting online waste pictures from the public, to supplement the gap in datasets.

Eco-Smart Trash Bins

CNHS Robotics, led by Sir Marvin Joseph Fernandez, developed the I AM GINA app-controlled smart trash bins that automatically open the correct waste bin via HC-05 Bluetooth Communication, a Bluetooth module, once the garbage has been identified.

Combining creativity and resourcefulness, the smart trash bins are built from recyclable materials—discarded plywood, used big buckets, and torn tarpaulins. Moreover, the bins are painted with minions carrying information about each waste classification, also known as Gina’s minions, to highlight the team’s love for the “Despicable Me” movie.

Furthermore, other features, such as the manual push button with voice response feature for people without phones and the full bin indicator that shows a red light when the trash must be taken out, are added to the smart trash bins to accommodate the needs of users who don’t have access to the mobile application.

Greener Digital Rural Communities

Although the possibilities for smart trash bins are endless, limited financial resources have drawn the line on

ChatGPT: Boon or Bane?

By: Lian Maye Tan

Every hustle becomes hassle-free when you do not even feel the need to lift a finger. Now that we are at the apex of the information age --- information is said to be at the tip of our fingertips. With face recognition’s existence, data itself is the tip of our fingers.

Click! A massive advancement took place in 2019 when facial recognition technology dethroned the fingerprint system. When it was introduced, the first thing we did was the test of accuracy --- whether true to its claims, it matches against depth information that will acquaint the beholder, or everything was all just a hoax.

Face ID is a pain! It acts like it recognizes everyone. Yet, beneath the external screen lies the software who manipulates the digital bane. If we integrate Face ID to ChatGPT, an Artificial Intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI --- they share the same keenness.

Released in 2022, Artificial Intelligence continues to exhibit its unique potentials to the media users. Imitating the innate cognitive capabilities of individuals to maneuver their daily basis exertion --AI refers to simulation of a device to think and act like human beings. Possessing the same feature, face ID also goes in depth with identification --- exceeding the human eye to pinpoint who’s who.

ChatGPT stands for Chat designing and producing more eco-smart bins for community use.

Generative Pre-training Transformer. It is an interconnected model of InstructGPT which was designed to work similarly to ChatGPT.

Deemed as a chatbot to accomplish tasks without sweat and exerted efforts -- A conversational tool that allows its users to have human-like discussion that only needs an email address and a stable internet connection.

According to Ben Goetzel, a cognitive scientist, artificial intelligence researcher, AI is a machine with a humanlike ability to generalize and as a result, it will have the potential to replace many tasks currently performed by human workers.

Typing only the topic and the scope of its domain, you can have a professionally written output in a matter of seconds.

Though it is incomparable to the speed of which the light travels --- Still, an average human brain is no match to Artificial Intelligence.

“Avoid comparing the intelligence of machines to that of humans, because the human level of intelligence is arbitrary, and not in any way absolute,” Goertzel added.

Just how fast the night changes, this huge feat is an apprehension of brilliance and intellect. The manifestation of fast-paced movement and abreast.

From Fingerprint to Face ID, now the AI. We are globally ready to embark on changes. Above all, stagnancy is scarier than transitions and alters.

WE ARE NOT A NO BRAINER.

In lieu of this, team GINA aims to continue increasing public knowledge around the environmental impacts of waste by launching the I AM GINA app, which is ready to be downloaded by Android users around the world using the Google App Play Store for free.

This flood-inspired solution, once mainstreamed, will trailblaze the future of solid waste management in rural communities like Compostela. Pushing this AI project along with the smart trash bins leans towards a bigger impact of designing green innovations that reinforce the progress of Sustainable Development Goals globally. I AM GINA supports the digital transformation of greener rural communities. A community’s response demonstrates the role of empathy in influencing the establishment of a rapport where individual responsibility and improved grassroots action thrive to make a difference—all while utilizing the cutting-edge of technology to solve the most complex and pressing environmental issues of our time.