March 7, 2019
In our weekly feature #Tech Thursdays, we bring you the story of an
innovation called Handicare that is helping people with lower limb disability
move around comfortably.
A final year student of mechanical engineering, Sumanth
Mudaliar happened to notice the difficulties faced by people with
lower limb disability while moving around. That was the trigger for
Handicare, a device that helps disabled people move around in a
more hygienic and comfortable manner.
Handicare, which won second prize at the Aarohan Social Innovation
Awards given out by Infosys Foundation has been
developed by Mudaliar and fellow engineering student Vishrut
Bhatt as part of their start up, Onceptual
Technologies
We noticed that the people with a disability in their legs are moving on
the road on a board by pushing their hands on the floor. This causes a
great difficulty as using the hands to push the board causes blisters and
cracks on their palms. There are hygienic issues as well as they use their
hands to move the board. They use the hands in washrooms and this gives
rise to many diseases. – Sumath Mudaliar, Co-founder, Onceptual
Technologies
Mudaliar and Bhatt, who are students of LD Engineering
College in Ahmedabad decided to so some research before developing
Handicare and approached Apang Manav Mandal, an institute
that reaches out to people with disabilities. The idea was to understand
their daily challenges better.
“At the NGO we met Darshita Shah, a special officer who
shared the many difficulties caused while using the board. “Ms Shah
explained that people with a disability in their legs have weak hands as well
and suffer a lot of pain in their shoulders as well as the spine when they
push the board with their hands”, says Mudaliar.
Challenges that Handicare tries to address in many ways. There are handle
bars that are wiggled in the right and left such that the front wheels, which
are also bigger, are in contact with the ground and push the ground
backwards. This leads to friction between the bigger wheels and the ground.
Due to this friction the wheel moves forwards as well as the device. Greater
the friction, the more easily the device moves, To reach higher speeds, the
handlebars need to be moved more frequently.
“We are targeting people with lower limb disability and it is mainly for
use indoors and on campus”, says Mudaliar as there are many devices
available for outdoor use. Handicare is made such that it enables access to
narrow places like toilets.
Shah says the device is easy and convenient to use. “We have distributed
Handicare devices to about 30 users, most of them free of cost. They are
hygienic and easy to use anywhere”.
Chhabil Ghanshyam Das, who is among the users, says the
device has made him feel more independent. “I am disabled from birth and
paralyzed from the waist down. With Handicare I don’t have to put my hands
down on the floor. It is comfortable to use as well”.
Handicare has been available in the market for nearly two years now and has
found over 200 users so far. “The basic challenge was to make
people aware that they could use it more easily compared to the board they
were using before and to create an emotional touch with Handicare”, says
Mudaliar.
Mudaliar and Bhatt are now planning to pitch Handicare to the central
government for the Accessible India Campaign.
Other stories in the #TechThursdays series:
Enable
Makeathon brings together key players to power innovative assistive tech
solutions
BleeTV offers
accessible, stimulating content, on demand, in Indian sign
language
Updated version
of Avaz app has plenty to offer, enables access to wider
audience
Source: https://newzhook.com/story/21589
