 "An awareness campaign on Smartcane underway in New Delhi. Photo: smartcane.saksham.org")
Sathguru commutes by the Metro Rail daily from his home in North Delhi to the Noida-based National Institute of Open Schooling, where he’s a junior assistant. Visually impaired since birth, he faced an everyday problem.
“Quite often, I faced awkward situations while standing in queues. I would often not know when the line moved ahead and would have to rely on touch; either touching a person’s bag or his back to understand how far the line had moved. Many a time, this would get misinterpreted, especially by the women!”
That was till Sathguru got his SmartCane, a handle-like device that can be attached to the white cane normally used by the blind. “The SmartCane has solved that problem by letting me know, through tactile vibrations, how far the person standing in front of me is or how far the line has moved,” he explains.
Created by Rohan Paul, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi, the white handle seeks to address an overlooked and often injurious problem faced by the 12 million visually impaired in the country.
This device complements the functionality of a normal cane by detecting obstacles from knee to head height. It uses ultrasonic sensors that measure soundwaves to detect obstacles at up to three metres ahead. The range of the detected obstacles is conveyed to the user via differentiated vibrations.
The SmartCane got international recognition for Paul last year. He was honoured as among the top 35 global innovators under the age of 35 in MIT’s prestigious ‘TR (for Technology Review) 35’ list of 2015.
Making the white cane ‘smart’
Making the white cane ‘smart’ was not easy. Making it commercially viable was even more difficult. It was made a reality by a coming together of a non-profit agency that worked with the potential users and understood their needs, a curriculum that introduced students to creating tech-based solutions and an alumni network. All this, eventually, made the commercial production possible.
The 10-year journey began when Paul, then a student of computer science at IIT-Delhi, was required to identify a social problem and then find a viable technological solution, as a part of his curriculum. Paul, now based in Boston, referred queries to Piyush Chanana, a member of AssisTech, an IIT initiative engaged in using modern technology for finding affordable solutions for the visually impaired.
Chanana, a lead engineer on the SmartCane project, said: “Rohan and his three friends, Dheeraj, Vaibhav and Ankush, visited the National Association for the Blind in 2005, where they met Dipendra Manocha.”
Manocha, visually challenged by birth, is the founder of Saksham Trust that works on disability issues. He presented a challenge to Paul and his friends. How does one resolve issues related to injuries primarily caused by hitting high objects like trucks, branches, vehicles and other obstacles that the simple white cane is unable to detect?
Paul was ready with his prototype of the obstacle-detection device as early as 2005-06. But, the project took close to 10 years to hit the stores. For it to work in the price-conscious Indian market, the device had to be affordable. While similar products like the LaserCane (US) and the UltraCane (UK) were priced upwards of Rs 60,000, the SmartCane would work only if priced at a fraction.
IIT’s vast alumni network came in handy. In 2007, V Shashi Kumar, managing director of the Chennai-based Phoenix Medical Systems, was on a business visit to All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the Capital. Kumar, who graduated from IIT-Madras, got a call from Paul’s professor, M Balakrishnan, to come and review an interesting prototype. He found the product not only commercially feasible but decided to undertake production himself, wanting to help a social cause.
By 2010, funding from The Wellcome Trust (UK) came through. This helped Phoenix finance the creation of moulds and dyes, which took care of the fixed cost component of the business. By 2014, Phoenix was able to produce SmartCanes at less than Rs 3,000 each. Snapdeal was selling the SmartCanes at Rs 3,500 on Friday.
“We started with 300-500 pieces a year. However, the market demand far surpassed our expectations, even receiving demands from as far as the US and Canada. We sold close to 12,000 pieces last year and hope to meet the future demands single-handedly. Ours is an extremely self-reliant project, and is self-sustainable, seeing the foreseeable and extremely promising growth in demand,” says Kumar.
Setting sights on the future
There is always scope for more innovation. The second version of the product is on the anvil but in its research phase, said Chanana of AssisTech. “We are looking at modifications, replacing the charger from a pin-type to a USB kind. The SmartCane is looking forward to go from being an obstacle-detection device to a navigation device, helping users detect landmarks and offer its user complete independence.”
Saksham, which takes care of distribution, has an aim of reaching out to a million people in the next three years. It plans to enter three-four new countries every year, funding majorly through donations and government schemes, said Anubhav Mitra, project manager, Saksham Trust.
The project aims to be self-sustainable and is steady on its course of achieving its current target of selling 15,000-30,000 devices a year, said Mitra.
Focusing on developing countries, Saksham has already introduced the project in Thailand, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Iran and Japan. Plans are afoot to launch it in South Africa by the end of the year.
CANE & ABLE: NOW, THE WHITE STICK GETS A 21ST CENTURY MAKEOVER
“Quite often, I faced awkward situations while standing in queues. I would often not know when the line moved ahead and would have to rely on touch; either touching a person’s bag or his back to understand how far the line had moved. Many a time, this would get misinterpreted, especially by the women!”
That was till Sathguru got his SmartCane, a handle-like device that can be attached to the white cane normally used by the blind. “The SmartCane has solved that problem by letting me know, through tactile vibrations, how far the person standing in front of me is or how far the line has moved,” he explains.
Created by Rohan Paul, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Delhi, the white handle seeks to address an overlooked and often injurious problem faced by the 12 million visually impaired in the country.
This device complements the functionality of a normal cane by detecting obstacles from knee to head height. It uses ultrasonic sensors that measure soundwaves to detect obstacles at up to three metres ahead. The range of the detected obstacles is conveyed to the user via differentiated vibrations.
The SmartCane got international recognition for Paul last year. He was honoured as among the top 35 global innovators under the age of 35 in MIT’s prestigious ‘TR (for Technology Review) 35’ list of 2015.
Making the white cane ‘smart’
Making the white cane ‘smart’ was not easy. Making it commercially viable was even more difficult. It was made a reality by a coming together of a non-profit agency that worked with the potential users and understood their needs, a curriculum that introduced students to creating tech-based solutions and an alumni network. All this, eventually, made the commercial production possible.
The 10-year journey began when Paul, then a student of computer science at IIT-Delhi, was required to identify a social problem and then find a viable technological solution, as a part of his curriculum. Paul, now based in Boston, referred queries to Piyush Chanana, a member of AssisTech, an IIT initiative engaged in using modern technology for finding affordable solutions for the visually impaired.
Chanana, a lead engineer on the SmartCane project, said: “Rohan and his three friends, Dheeraj, Vaibhav and Ankush, visited the National Association for the Blind in 2005, where they met Dipendra Manocha.”
Manocha, visually challenged by birth, is the founder of Saksham Trust that works on disability issues. He presented a challenge to Paul and his friends. How does one resolve issues related to injuries primarily caused by hitting high objects like trucks, branches, vehicles and other obstacles that the simple white cane is unable to detect?
Paul was ready with his prototype of the obstacle-detection device as early as 2005-06. But, the project took close to 10 years to hit the stores. For it to work in the price-conscious Indian market, the device had to be affordable. While similar products like the LaserCane (US) and the UltraCane (UK) were priced upwards of Rs 60,000, the SmartCane would work only if priced at a fraction.
IIT’s vast alumni network came in handy. In 2007, V Shashi Kumar, managing director of the Chennai-based Phoenix Medical Systems, was on a business visit to All India Institute of Medical Sciences in the Capital. Kumar, who graduated from IIT-Madras, got a call from Paul’s professor, M Balakrishnan, to come and review an interesting prototype. He found the product not only commercially feasible but decided to undertake production himself, wanting to help a social cause.
By 2010, funding from The Wellcome Trust (UK) came through. This helped Phoenix finance the creation of moulds and dyes, which took care of the fixed cost component of the business. By 2014, Phoenix was able to produce SmartCanes at less than Rs 3,000 each. Snapdeal was selling the SmartCanes at Rs 3,500 on Friday.
“We started with 300-500 pieces a year. However, the market demand far surpassed our expectations, even receiving demands from as far as the US and Canada. We sold close to 12,000 pieces last year and hope to meet the future demands single-handedly. Ours is an extremely self-reliant project, and is self-sustainable, seeing the foreseeable and extremely promising growth in demand,” says Kumar.
Setting sights on the future
There is always scope for more innovation. The second version of the product is on the anvil but in its research phase, said Chanana of AssisTech. “We are looking at modifications, replacing the charger from a pin-type to a USB kind. The SmartCane is looking forward to go from being an obstacle-detection device to a navigation device, helping users detect landmarks and offer its user complete independence.”
Saksham, which takes care of distribution, has an aim of reaching out to a million people in the next three years. It plans to enter three-four new countries every year, funding majorly through donations and government schemes, said Anubhav Mitra, project manager, Saksham Trust.
The project aims to be self-sustainable and is steady on its course of achieving its current target of selling 15,000-30,000 devices a year, said Mitra.
Focusing on developing countries, Saksham has already introduced the project in Thailand, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Iran and Japan. Plans are afoot to launch it in South Africa by the end of the year.
CANE & ABLE: NOW, THE WHITE STICK GETS A 21ST CENTURY MAKEOVER
- Created by Rohan Paul, a graduate of IIT-Delhi, the white handle seeks to address an overlooked and often injurious problem faced by the 12 million visually impaired in the country
- This device complements the functionality of a normal cane by detecting obstacles from knee to head height
- It uses ultrasonic sensors that measure soundwaves to detect obstacles at up to three metres ahead. The range of the detected obstacles is conveyed to the user via differentiated vibrations
- The SmartCane got international recognition for Paul last year. He was honoured as among the top 35 global innovators under the age of 35 in MIT’s prestigious ‘TR (for Technology Review) 35’ list of 2015
