Mumbai News: Project Chetna Launches AI-Powered 'Milaap Setu' To Reunite Missing Elderly
Mumbai: Mumbai-based Project Chetna unveiled the pilot launch of Milaap Setu, an initiative that harnesses advanced artificial intelligence and face recognition technology to reunite missing and displaced elderly persons with their families. This initiative will specially focus on elderly people suffering from dementia.
Project Chetna is known for its innovative idea of creating QR-based wearable pendants and AI-enabled face recognition to efficiently identify and reunite individuals affected by memory impairment and for children. Now, the organisation has placed its focus on the elderly people in India which constitute a huge part of the one lakh people which go missing in India every year.
As an initiative to use AI for good, Milaap Setu was launched at ‘SMIT Shelter for Senior Citizens’ in Thane. This pilot program allows elderly homes to upload clear photographs and minimal details of missing elderly via a free and centralised portal. Families or caregivers can also upload photos of their missing relatives, which can be searched in the national shelter database for matches through the integrated AI-powered facial recognition engine.
By streamlining complex manual processes, this platform aims to build India’s first unified AI-driven database of missing individuals, enabling faster and more accurate reunifications. Simultaneously, it aims to accelerate reunions, reducing time, costs, and emotional distress compared to traditional searches by exemplifying AI for social good, beyond commercial value, bringing dignity, closure, and hope to countless families.
Akshay Ridlan, the founder of Milaap Setu, said, “Approximately 8.8 million Indians aged over 60 years suffer from dementia. Registered elderly shelters are operating at full capacity with limited resources to track and reconnect residents with loved ones. While AI is enabling billion-dollar revenues in business, we are driving AI for good in our society.”
Ridlan gave action calls to shelters urging them to join the Milaap Setu portal while he urged families to upload the photographs of their missing elderly loved ones on their national database. He also invited other NGOs, tech firms, government bodies, and care networks to collaborate, scale, and strengthen this mission.
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