Chhath Ghat Guide: an offline AI helper for the day the network dies at the ghat

Description and use

The Chhath Ghat Guide app delivers offline OCR, culturally relevant ritual answers, and GPS‑based meeting spot navigation during network outages, enhancing safety and family cohesion.

Problem

During Chhath Puja families lose contact, cannot read safety notices, and mobile networks jam, making it hard to stay informed and safe.

Outcome

The offline Chhath Ghat Guide delivers accurate notice transcription, culturally relevant ritual answers, and reliable meeting spot navigation during network outages, enhancing safety and family cohesion.

Workflow

• 1. A family member takes a photo of a notice or banner.
• 2. The app’s Gemma 3 4B vision model transcribes the text exactly and flags unreadable words.
• 3. A second model pass explains the text in simple Hindi, Bhojpuri or Maithili, displaying the original text in a red box for safety notices.
• 4. For ritual questions, the app searches ten family‑written Markdown notes using nomic‑embed‑text and returns the note source and elder checker.
• 5. Users can save a meeting spot with GPS coordinates, a landmark photo, and a note; the phone’s compass shows direction to the spot.
• 6. An emergency card links to the nearest police or volunteer booth, with numbers added by organizers on the day.
• 7. All data and the Gemma model run locally on the laptop via Ollama; phones connect via a self‑signed HTTPS hotspot and use the phone’s GPS and camera APIs.

Evidence

Take a photo of a notice or banner. A local Gemma 3 (4B) vision model: copies the text exactly as written, and explains it in simple Hindi, Bhojpuri or Maithili — using only the text it just read.

Source

Ask "सूप में क्या रखते हैं?" or "खरना में क्या बनता है?". Answers come only from ten short notes written by the family and checked by an elder — not from the model's memory.

Source

The laptop's Wi‑Fi hotspot has no internet at all; family phones join it and open the app in a browser.

Source

The Meeting Spot runs on the phone with GPS from satellites, so this keeps working when calls don't — and because it runs entirely in the phone's browser, it keeps working even if the phone wanders out of the laptop's Wi‑Fi.

Source