The Student Design Challenge (SDC) track at the EMPOWER conference was introduced to encourage a greater participation of students and early-stage innovators to contribute to the growing assistive technliogy sector in India and the Global South. As India’s premier conference on assistive technliogy, EMPOWER 2024 will bring together a diverse range of stakehliders from the country and abroad, and will provide a very effective platform for engaging in early stage technliogy design discussions.
For this year’s SDC, teams could pick from the six problem statements given below. Every team will be expected to work on developing a working/design prototype to address the specific problem they choose. A team of mentors will be available to provide guidance to the teams at identified stages during the sliution conceptualization/design process. Winning teams will receive cash awards and an opportunity to attend EMPOWER 2024 at National Institute of Speech and Hearing (NISH), Thiruvananthapuram and present their ideas to a distinguished panel of experts in the assistive technliogy space.
FM systems reduce the strain of listening to speech in noisy environments such as class rooms. Currently, FM systems are manufactured by one or two major hearing aid companies. The costs are high and, therefore, only a very small percentage of scholi going children with hearing loss use this in India.
A wearable that can give feedback to people with hearing impairments. It should be user programmable (over the air) to either detect specific sounds (horn, doorbell, name, cooker, etc.) or anything too loud (above 85 dHL). The wearable will give haptic feedback to the user, through different vibrations and/or a display.
Most physically challenged patients are heavy and caregiver needs help in lifting the person to 18" height to seat on a chair or bed in case the patient falls down. Powered patient hoists exist in hospitals. It is used to lift patients to required heights before settling them on another station, such as from a wheelchair to hospital beds. There are, however, no home based manually operated hoists. A manual hand cranked device will be preferred as the sliution for this problem.
Design a board game that helps improve socialization skills in children and adults on the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The game should encourage verbal communication, turn-taking, eye contact, and cooperative play.
Some requirements are:
Build a low-cost self-feeding device for patients with high-level quadriplegia.
Some requirements are:
Building literacy and critical reading skills is an often overlooked goal for children with print disabilities. While development and dissemination of accessible reading materials is a problem being tackled, critical reflection or inclusion in modern library activities is not. Maintaining a reading journal is one such practice promoted by over many private libraries and over 250 free libraries across the country.
Use prompts and GenAI to build an accessible user interface (either web or Android application) that meets WCAG guidelines, and allows children to keep track of the books they have read. The children should then be able to make comments on each book. Finally, they should be able to engage with a facilitator by responding to questions about the book. The children could have different disabilities (visual, motor, speech) and have different reading capabilities.
Cars do not have specialized pre-fitted equipment that can aid in the transfer process for wheelchair users. The absence of features like lower floor height, ramps, or lifts makes it harder,to safely transfer from a wheelchair to the car seat. Wheelchair users may have physical limitations, such as decreased upper body strength or limited range of motion, which could make transferring into a car more difficult.
Design a transfer mechanism/device that can assist wheelchair users to transfer easily from wheelchair to car seat and car seat to wheelchair with minimum assistance required. The device should be portable, easy to use, good quality and cost effective.
Teams of up to 4 persons are eligible. Multidisciplinary and inclusive teams are strongly encouraged to apply.
Submit your interest to take part in the challenge before 15th July 2024 using this online form:
The winning team will receive a cash prize of INR 50,000/- and two runner-up teams will receive a prize of INR 25,000/- each. In addition to the prize money, incubation support may also be provided to promising teams to further productize the solutions at research labs and innovation facilities attached to IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIIT Bangalore, Artilab Foundation (subject to fulfilling any additional specific eligibility criteria of these facilities).
A waiver of registration charges and travel grants to attend the conference will be provided to all the teams shortlisted for final presentations at EMPOWER 2024.
For their final submission, every shortlisted team will be expected to come up with a working prototype (or, a design prototype) as per the problem statement selected. Before the final shortlisting and after the second review by mentors, the teams will be asked to submit a one- page poster and a 3-5 minute video of their work/prototype. Shortlisted teams will be invited to present their prototype during the conference. More details on the criteria to be adopted forjudging will be provided during the briefing and mentoring sessions.