Consider having a chum who’d nudge you each time you had to take your drugs dose. They’d organise your capsules, hand them to you and with it a pitcher of water to make issues clean.
A groovy idea, isn’t it?
Neatly, that’s precisely what a Elegance 11 scholar at Navrachana Upper Secondary Faculty in Gujarat’s Vadodara has innovated; albeit his advent is a miniaturised, robot model of the stated good friend.
‘Meditel’, as 15-year-old Nikhil Lemos has christened his brainchild, used to be born out of an blameless thought to lend a hand his grandparents. “I spotted how they might once in a while omit to take their capsules,” he explains. In an try to ideate, a tender Nikhil put pen to paper and sketched what he assumed can be an answer — an alarm machine.
And that used to be it; a doodle at the closing web page of a pocket book. However a science truthful on the finish of time period had him revisit this doodle. “We have been intended to get a hold of one thing cutting edge and I considered going again to this concept. That’s how Meditel took form,” he stocks.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to mention that the innovation has grown with Nikhil; the 2 have shared a parallel adventure, as the theory transcended from being a PowerPoint presentation to a paper fashion to a elementary prototype. From there it reworked right into a full-blown electric fashion — whose nuances Nikhil discovered himself explaining to none rather then soccer legend David Beckham in November closing yr.
The trajectory has been dream-like. And in a tete-a-tete with The Higher India, Nikhil shall we us in on the main points.
‘I simply sought after to lend a hand’
This can be a recognized undeniable fact that skipping one’s drugs dosage is to the detriment of fine well being. However as Nikhil quickly deduced, medicine non-adherence wasn’t a one-pronged drawback. It had many aspects.
“In the beginning, I determined to get a hold of an alarm machine that will alert other people after they had to take their capsules. However, ultimately, as I noticed my grandmother, I realised that even if she did take note, however didn’t have water to hand, she would put it off for later.” This ended in Nikhil integrating a reusable water bottle into the tool, connected through velcro.
The 3rd part used to be the tablet organiser, born in an try to lend a hand individuals who have been prescribed a couple of doses particular to their meal instances. “Meditel lets in customers to set as much as six day-to-day alarms, accommodating more than a few medicine schedules like pre/put up breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” Nikhil explains. Sourcing the portions and placing the tool in combination used to be something however coding to get the alarm techniques in position proved to be a problem. “This used to be necessarily the primary fashion I used to be ever development from scratch,” Nikhil says.
“I become savvy with the arduino — an open-source coding board — that sends a sign to the opposite portions of the tool to regulate their running.” The adventure used to be fraught with finding out and spanned months, with Nikhil refining his coding abilities, sprucing his technical palette and perfecting Meditel with each and every finding out.
Commending Nikhil’s dedication to manner, his mentor Mukesh Bind stocks how his adventure with Nikhil started all through the Global Robotic Olympiad (2019) the place they met. “Following the contest, Nikhil began finding out robotics with me. It used to be all through one in all our classes that he expressed his need to make a tool that will lend a hand his grandfather together with his medicine.”
In 2021, Meditel used to be deemed entire through Nikhil.
Meditel’s good fortune is mirrored within the many accolades that line Nikhil’s cabinets — 2nd runners-up on the Jagran Josh Training Awards within the Robotics Class (April 2024); winner of the INSPIRE Awards (2023) — a national-level science truthful organised through the Division of Science and Generation; one in all 50 innovators on the Nationwide Kids Innovation Problem in partnership with UNICEF (2023), a panellist on the Global Kids’s Day Convention in New Delhi (2023) amongst others.
However the one who surpassed all of those, Nikhil says, used to be the popularity from UNICEF in November closing yr.
‘One of the crucial peak 3 moments of my lifestyles’
It isn’t each extraordinary day that you simply get to face in entrance of the legend Beckham and relay your desires to him. However Nikhil did. And he classifies this as his top-tier second; one he does no longer take calmly. Retracing his steps main as much as it, he says it used to be fated. “I hadn’t deliberate it. I by no means carried out to UNICEF. In truth, I carried out to every other pageant hosted through the incubation centre of Gujarat College, who despatched my venture to UNICEF!”
So you’ll be able to consider Nikhil’s astonishment when he were given a choice someday in October 2023 from Sanyam Chhajed, systems supervisor at GUSEC (Gujarat College Startup and Entrepreneurship Council), informing him about an exhibition the place a couple of dignitaries can be provide. Something ended in every other and on 13 November, 2023, Nikhil used to be one in all 5 selected scholars from throughout India presenting his paintings to Beckham, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
GUSEC has performed a pivotal function in his adventure, Nikhil issues out, including that he has gained immense fortify from the crew there.
The connection is reciprocal.
As Chhajed stocks, they see immense possible in Meditel. “I consider {that a} tool like Meditel will probably be a innovative product for aged other people on account of its small measurement and easy-to-use options.”
As in terms of any product-based innovation, he says optimum investment can lend a hand it scale. The similar is going for Meditel. “The investment will lend a hand Nikhil refine the design, make it extra compact, and improve its technical options. Moreover, investment will help in acquiring the desired certifications and checking out prior to launching it out there,” he says.
The crew is having a look at patenting and liberating the innovation as temporarily as imaginable, after assembly pre-requisite stipulations. The cause of the urgency, Chhajed says, is the emerging selection of well being problems.
“The options presented through the tool will very much get advantages the meant target audience. Such inventions are new to the Indian marketplace, and at VSCIC, we consider that Meditel must be well-supported and funded to succeed in a big group.”
Make stronger within the shape that he has gained from UNICEF and GUSEC is enjoyable for Nikhil. “If you have such names backing your innovation, it instils a way of consider in it.” Particularly in healthcare, he issues out, persons are sceptical of trusting inventions. “So this very much is helping.” He provides that he sees Meditel’s scope increasing from being elderly-centric to at least one that’s not certain through age.
This goal stems from a survey Nikhil performed in February this yr, which published that it wasn’t simply the aged who omit their capsules, but additionally many kids who replicate the similar absent-mindedness.
The prevailing turns out promising for Meditel, however the innovator in Nikhil has already set his attractions at the long run. “I’m having a look at integrating algorithms that can expect information according to medicine conduct. It is going to additionally stay a report of the way steadily one forgets to take their capsules and their present well being state of affairs, and use those metrics to pass judgement on their long run well being.”
Will Meditel be a part of a bigger startup someday?
“Possibly,” smiles Nikhil. “But when I do challenge right into a startup, I need it to concentrate on processing healthcare knowledge that may expect other people’s long run well being. I feel that will affect the sector in a larger means.”
If it is arising with Meditel or running on ‘Elder Allies’ — an initiative during which Nikhil and his buddies train seniors the fundamentals of tech — this 15-year-old is striving to make his mark on the earth the usage of generation as an enabler.
There are moments when doubt takes centre degree, he says. However then, he reminds himself of different youth-led tasks which might be converting the sector. “It’s comforting to grasp that you’ve got a complete group of people that’ve completed it prior to you and can proceed to do it. And that provides me self assurance,” says Nikhil.
Edited through Pranita Bhat