for disabled New Delhi, Dec 23 (PTI) Six teams of innovators willcompete to win an opportunity to build accessibility solutionsfor persons with disabilities (PWDs), the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced here.
Organised by the ICRC, 'The Enable Makeathon (EM)' aimsto develop prototypes and affordable solutions for challengesfaced by PWDs, particularly those living in rural areas.
In the final phase of the initiative, teams comprisingengineers, scientists, designers, and innovators competeagainst each other for grants that will allow them to furtherdevelop and market their innovations.
"The ICRC has been distributing orthotics and prostheticsto people across 40 countries. However, we believe thesechallenges can be better addressed by working with thosestraight out of an environment of physical disability andliving in underdeveloped countries without means ofinclusion," Tarun Sarwal, Head of Innovation, ICRC, said.
The six finalists out of 16 shortlisted teams are -- TeamWelava (Delhi), Team Bleetech (Mumbai), Team Autobots(Vellore), Team For Growth (Bangalore), Team Torchit(Ahmedabad), and Team Unicom Solutions (Vellore).
Each of the contesting teams are developing an innovationthat directly responds to one of the 12 Enable Makeathonchallenges including access to education, access to tourismand access to transport.
Team Welava from Delhi have developed a product whichaims at making tourism more accessible to the persons withdisabilities through a universal design solution by entryticket redesign.
Team Bleetech have developed a low-cost version of anencyclopedia for persons who are hearing impaired. The userscan ask questions on a mobile platform, either in signlanguage or English, and receive answers in Indian signlanguage.
While the team from Vellore have created an applicationthat supports pregnancy diagnosis for the visually impaired,Team Torchit from Bangalore have developed a hardware solutionwhich can be attached to a walking cane to help a blind personthrough feedback in the form of a buzzing sound and vibratingsensations.
"The finalist teams' innovations truly highlight how thecombination of open-source hardware and the rise of Indiantalent in ICTs can infuse new ideas and efforts into theassistive technology movement by actually working with personswith disability," Sarwal said.
The competition will conclude on February 6 where threewinners will be selected for an incubator grant and will get achance to participate in a 1-year incubator programme tofurther develop and scale their solutions. PTI MAHMAH.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.