Development of personalized homepage for 'Mausam' mobile application:
Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) · Miscellaneous · Software
A modest, finishable personalisation feature with a very low ceiling — if you take it, make the derived indices genuine calculations rather than repackaged forecast variables, because rearranging cards is not something a panel can reward.
What it actually is
The official weather app shows everyone the same screen, but a farmer, an asthma sufferer and a wedding planner all need completely different numbers from the same forecast. The ask is a homepage that rearranges itself around who the user is, surfacing air quality for one person and soil moisture for another.
What to build
A configurable homepage where the user identifies with one or more of the eight profiles the statement enumerates and the layout assembles from a widget library keyed to that profile — air quality, UV and humidity for the health-conscious, sunrise and sunset with a derived best-running-hours window for fitness users, tide timing and wave conditions for the coast, saved destinations with packing prompts for travellers, commute-window rain alerts for families, soil moisture and frost alerts for growers, visibility and storm warnings for commuters, and rain probability with a comfort index for event planners — with the derived indices actually computed from forecast variables rather than displayed as raw numbers, and severe weather warnings overriding the personalised layout whatever profile is selected.
Smallest thing that wins the room
Switch profile from farmer to asthma sufferer and watch the same underlying forecast reassemble into a different set of cards, then fire a severe weather warning and show it taking over the top of the screen regardless of profile.
How crowded this one gets
A guess, projected from the 2025 statements — the last year where both the submission counts and the winners were published.
Quieter than 27% of the 226 · #166 of 226 by expected field
A normal-sized field. Your idea has to be good, not miraculous.
Why: central ministry statements sat below the average.
This is a guess, not a fact
Nobody has published 2026’s numbers yet. This is an analysed estimate from last year’s pattern, so please do not take it as the truth — check the live counter on the SIH portal before you decide anything. The range covers the middle half of likely outcomes, so one statement in two lands outside it. Entry closes at 500 ideas per statement, so no range goes past that — a statement that reaches the cap fills and shuts rather than drawing an unlimited crowd. The model reads only three things a team can see before choosing — software or hardware, the theme, and what kind of body posted it — and those explain about a quarter of the variation in last year’s field sizes (R² 0.25 on held-out statements). Trust the band more than the number, and the ordering more than either. It cannot see how good your idea is, which is the part that actually decides it.
The scores
The number is the shorthand. The line under it is the reason.
Acceptance potential
2/5This is a personalisation layer for an app that already exists, and a configurable widget dashboard has a very low ceiling — the derived indices are the only place real work can go, and most teams will display raw values and call it personalisation.
Feasibility
4/5Most of what the eight profiles need is genuinely available — forecast variables, air quality station data, UV, tide and sea state, and satellite soil moisture are all obtainable — with the notable exception of pollen counts, since India has no operational pollen monitoring network to draw from.
Innovation scope
3/5The eight user profiles and the variables to show each are dictated, but nothing says how personalisation is chosen, whether profiles are declared or learned, or how the derived indices are computed, and those derivations are where the real design work sits.
Clarity
3/5Unusually concrete about what each profile should see, but the description consists of nothing except that persona list — there is no background, no expected solution, no statement of how the homepage assembles, and no mention of the constraints of the existing application it is meant to slot into.
Effort
MediumA widget library, a profile model, a layout engine and a set of derived index calculations over a weather backend is a contained build with no technically deep component, which is unusual on this portal.
Demo-ability
EasyToggling between profiles and watching the same forecast reassemble into different cards is immediate and self-explanatory, and the warning override gives you a second clean moment.
In its favour
- Green flag: The eight personas and their variables are enumerated, so requirements ambiguity is zero and you can go straight to building
- Green flag: The derived indices are the real opportunity — best running hours and a comfort index computed from temperature, humidity, wind and radiation are genuine calculations, and a team that derives them properly rather than displaying raw values has something to show
- Green flag: The scope is genuinely modest by the standards of this portal, so a small team can finish and polish rather than stub
- Green flag: Making severe weather warnings override the personalised layout is the right safety decision and is the kind of judgement a meteorological panel will notice
Against it
- Red flag: Pollen count is listed for the health-conscious profile and India has no operational pollen monitoring network, so that data simply does not exist to display
- Red flag: A configurable widget dashboard is a low-ceiling product and a panel will see a rearranging homepage rather than anything technically substantial
- Red flag: The description is only a persona list with no background or expected solution, so what the sponsor actually wants beyond the widget arrangement is left unstated
- Red flag: Personalising the homepage risks burying a warning under someone's tide chart, so the priority override is a requirement rather than a nice touch
What you will be writing
- React Native widget-based layout engine
- WBGT or apparent-temperature comfort index derivation
- CPCB air quality station ingestion
- INCOIS tide and sea state feeds
- profile-weighted card ranking
- warning-priority override layer
- Weather services
- Mobile UX personalisation
- Public information delivery
Prior art to read before you start
persona-driven adaptive homepage · derived weather comfort and activity indices · warning-priority information hierarchy
Analysed by Claude Opus. Every score above is a judgment call with its reasoning attached — kindly cross-check this against the official statement on the SIH portal before your team commits to it.