CHENNAI: EMPOWER 2023, an Assistive Technology (AT) conference, organised by IIT Madras Research Park (IITMRP), was inaugurated on Thursday. The three-day event aims at bringing together industry, academia, and startups to encourage and promote research and development of indigenous assistive technology that would help people with disabilities and senior citizens.
In the sixth edition of the conference, 11 transformative assistive technology solutions poised for commercialisation within the next year were unveiled. These innovations target diverse disabilities - hearing, speech, visual, mobility, and learning challenges.
IIT Madras Research Park, as part of its 10X programme that promotes startups, is pursuing an ambitious vision to make India a global leader in assistive technology. Efforts are being taken towards developing affordable, accessible, and quality indigenous AT products by encouraging and incubating start-ups of this category. They are also working on policies and facilitating donors who would like to support the vision to make these devices accessible.
President of IIT Madras Research Park & Incubation Cell Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Kanthari’s co-founder Sabriye Tenberken, programme director of Saksham Nirmita Narasimhan, Google’s India accessibility lead Ajit Narayan, professor at University of Birmingham, UK Volker Sorge were present at the event.