JOIN USBhanu Priya Vyas meets two scientists brightening lives through technology – one, helping visually-challenged women become more independent and the other, aiding women researchers to sustain their quest for science.
A vibrating cane that enables visually-impaired individuals to move around freely in the city, urinals that don’t need water to maintain cleanliness and hygiene, a mobile radio service that acts as a social media platform for rural communities and an online directory that brings thousands of medical and scientific experts together to discover drugs that can cure diseases like tuberculosis and malaria - these were the four handpicked technological innovations showcased at the recent India Social Good summit at New Delhi.
“Tap, tap and I can sense the vibrations of objects I can potentially collide with,” remarks Bharti Kalra, 23, a computer instructor in Delhi and a user of SmartCane, the brainchild Dr Rohan Paul. Bharti is one of the few visually-impaired persons, who can move around the busy national capital with ease, courtesy her new-found, tech-savvy ‘companion’.
The SmartCane is a technology-equipped cane that detects the presence of objects in an area and gives out sensory vibrations to the user. So, whether it is another person, a vehicle or a big sand hill at a construction site, s/he can perceive its presence within a distance of three metres, thereby averting collision.
Created with the help of inputs from the National Association for Blind, the SmartCane has some key features that set it apart from an ordinary white cane.
The electronic device that uses ultrasonic ranging to detect objects has an adjustable detection range – three metres for outdoors and 1.8 meters for indoors, an ergonomic grip and in-built rechargeable battery that provides a 10-hour backup.
“For now, the SmartCane can be bought for Rs 3,000 from one of the 30 regional centres run by organisations working with the visually-impaired across the country. It is also available at a subsidised rate of Rs 400,” informs Rohan.
Although the device is gender neutral, Rohan believes that it can empower visually-impaired women, who bear the “burden of dual disability”. He observes, “Visually-impaired women are generally confined to their homes as family members are wary of sending them out alone. This, in the long run, diminishes their self-confidence and the ability to negotiate with the outside world on their own terms.”
For young women like Bharti or Mumbai-based Indirani Sankari, who “feels great” that she is able to move around independently, the SmartCane is a real boon. When Bharti traverses a distance of nearly 60 km everyday, braving unruly crowds on the public transport, to reach her workplace in South Delhi, she feels a sense of happiness. “I am no longer scared of stepping out alone, day or night,” she smiles.
If Rohan has used his technical education to provide mobility to the visually-impaired, scientist Dr Anshu Bhardwaj has put her degree in Bioinformatics to good use by being part of the team that has built the Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) platform, where the world’s best scientists and hospitals collaborate to finds ways of providing affordable healthcare to the developing world.
The OSDD platform, which uses online crowdsourcing to discover new and indigenous drugs, has come up under the leadership of veteran scientists like Dr Samir Brahmachari, Dr T S Balganesh and Zakir Thomas. Disturbed by the fact that no new drugs had been discovered to treat tuberculosis, the illustrious researchers came up with a workable solution in 2008 in the form of the OSDD, which today has transformed into a virtual directory of experts who develop lifesaving drugs.
Explains Anshu, who works with the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), “The OSDD has over 7,000 members, including 1,000 active members. They share their published work, which we assess independently by performing the said experiments in our partner laboratories. Once the verification is complete, we move on to the next step towards drug discovery.”
“The main purpose of all this is to do away with the Intellectual Property (IP) model of research followed by the established pharmaceutical companies. Our website uses a common licence model wherein all the work shared belongs to everyone,” adds Anshu. This, in turn, speeds up the process of research.
Currently, the group is in Phase Two of clinical trials for discovering an effective drug for tuberculosis. “The process that usually takes a minimum of two decades has happened in just six years using the OSDD platform,” she says. While the government is providing them with funding, to minimise costs further, they have joined hands with various scientific research centres in India.
Of course, this initiative is bearing another interesting impact – it is allowing several women scientists to pursue their passion for research. “Many women PhDs are not able to continue research once they settle down. Through the OSDD, they can work from home, share their research, read other people’s works and sustain their quest for science,” shares Anshu.
Clearly, when science meets social activism, it can bring lasting changes to the lives of the most vulnerable and marginalised people in the world.