KOCHI:Sitting pretty isn’t easy, especially when you are at work. But then, now you can, thanks to an Indian company that is joining the global wearable revolution of the Internet of Things with an “ergonomical” chip.
Catalan Labs, a bootstrapped startup, is on cloud nine, with the company being honoured as the sole delegate from Asia at the ‘Shift Conference,’ the biggest startup event in Southeast Europe. Sandeep S, co-founder of the company and IIM Bangalore alumnus, participated in the ‘Shift Challenge’ held in Split, Croatia, on June 11 and 12.
The CatalanLabs team earned the recognition for PortuSpine, a wearable health solution that reduces the likelihood of spinal problems for working professionals. The device analyses body posture and lets the user know if anything is wrong with his posture, through haptic feedback. The user is then provided tips to correct his posture, says Sandeep.
The user will be able to interact with the mobile app to track his spine health details. “As a company, we started with the vision of blending technology and life. We wanted a paradigm shift in the way we interact with computers by making the usage of technology seamless and a pleasurable experience for the user. We were inspired by the Catalan-raised Neil Harbisson, who made a hardware input device for his own body,” says Sangeet S, another co-founder.
“The ease with which he can make use of the device like a part of his own body inspired us. We are also being mentored by Prof Francesc Moll Echeto, an electronics professor at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain. He guides us on the intricacies of product development. Hence the name Catalan Labs,” he adds.
“While developing the next generation interaction platform and its gesture control, we realised the potential for application of our research on “body posture recognition with inertial sensors.” The product was originally developed to relieve us from back pain due to long hours of sitting. It soon found a lot of fans as most of our friends were from the IT sector. They all wanted it as a product. Its success led us to think of launching the product on a large scale,” says Jerric Lyns John, its co-founder.
Shift Conference
This year over 1,200 delegates and 20 international speakers attended the event. CatalanLabs was chosen as one among the 24 startups selected from across the world and the only one from Asia which participated in the Shift Challenge. The company has presented the idea before eminent judges from Y-Combinator, Mashable, TechCrunch, 500 StartUps etc.