 An innovator named Jandak Chawla has come up with an easy-to-use and comfortable glove which can assess the finger joint movements of human hand. People with joint ailments or any hand injury can measure their grip force and angular joint movement with this product. Constant innovations and creative solutions are changing the trends of the society and are making our life easier and better. Our Indian medical industry is constantly working on developing innovative solutions for the patients to experience and lead a better quality of life, enhanced recovery rate, making it faster than ever before. So in today's edition of Changemakers, we have with us one such innovator who has come up with an innovation in this physiotherapy sector. Let's hear it from the lady herself. Welcome, Jannath. Thank you, sir. Thank you for having me. Jannath, please introduce yourself and tell us briefly about your innovation. Hi, everybody. I am Jannath Chawla, born and brought up in the city of beautiful Chandigarh. I did my undergraduate in computer science engineering from UIAT Punjab University. I work as a research member at Design Innovation Centre and that's when this project started. So it merely started as a project and today, five years down the lane, I'm here sharing my entrepreneurial journey. So we've developed an easy to use hand-held device that helps to measure and store gonometric data. It is an automatic automation in the field of physiotherapy. Jannath, what problem are you addressing through your innovation? Can you please elaborate that? So if we go back to the conventional methods and see people undergoing their rehabilitation journey who have suffered from hand injuries, be it accidents or joint pains, have to wait in long queues and go in person and visit a physiotherapist. The physiotherapist will then take readings of their angular movements, joint by joint and finger by finger. This is a manual task and hence it's very cumbersome. It also consumes a lot of time and there can be manual efforts. We have automated this entire process. We've developed a glove which has sensors on it. So you just wear our glove, move your fingers and we have the readings in the app. The doctor can see how well you're progressing and then decide what's the next course of action for you. So can you explain a little bit more how your product works? Right. So it's basically a glove which has sensors on it. You won't be able to see the sensors, that's how we've created the look and feel of the product. Wear our glove, it has sensors. If you move your fingers, those sensors will take the readings. It's an IoT product so everything moves onto the app. The doctor can go log in, search your name in his patient profile and see what are the readings he is getting for those and then decide the next action or the next corrective plan that he wants to suggest to you. That's how the product works. Great. So what was your source of motivation for this innovation and what inspired you to do something like that? Right. So I have a very personal thing attached to it if I say my grandmother used to visit a physiotherapist and often I would take her to a physiotherapist. I observed there are long waiting lines for patients waiting for the physiotherapist. So we had to wait for longer hours. It was not just not a very effective way to utilize time but also very tiresome for the person who's waiting with the patient. And once you go in that also had a very long procedure. They used to go finger by finger. So we thought why not? And that's when we were also approached by Dr. Hassan, a physiotherapist in PGI who came up with the same problem and that's when we all sat down and brainstorm as to what could be a possible solution for this. And that's how the journey started for all of us. Yes, it's the kind of very personalized problem you're trying to address. So Jannath, can you tell me the challenges you have faced during this entrepreneurial journey and how you overcome those? Sure. So what started as just a mere project back in college to just solve a personal issue? We observed that this was actually an issue that most of the people faced who were visiting physiotherapists. So in order to solve this problem, we went out there to the physiotherapists, interacted with a lot of patients. But as we all know in 2020 when COVID hit, that was the time where we had major issues. We couldn't go out there to the patients, tests our product. So that was a challenge for a year or so that we faced. But having said that, we also used that time and opportunity to actually work on the fabric and other things, probably app, website. So it was a challenge initially, but then we converted into a positive for ourselves and moved on from there. Apart from that, I think funding was also an issue initially. We would go out there, ask for funds and people were like, what are you guys doing? So everybody wasn't really aware about, okay, we want to change the world, we want to bring that change. They really didn't put in confidence in some undergraduate people trying to change the world. But I think over the years, I've seen that shift and shift in mind and that bent has really occurred. You can start a change at a very early stage and that's what I think is actually bringing India to the front. Truly said, and I think it's a very important point. Janath, recently we have seen so many innovation in physiotherapy sector. So how is your innovation unique from all the other products available in the market? Right, so if I talk about the plus points of our innovation, so we only focus on hand. We not only provide you, provide the readings of the angular movements, we also bring in grip, grip joint, grip measurements also in our product. So you're sitting at your home, so no such product allows you the ease to sit at your home and give the readings to your doctor. So this is one in a kind of a product that we've developed that at your ease, you can sit at your home, wear the product and all the readings will reach to the doctor. So you don't have to physically go to your doctor. In the near course of time, we're also planning that once we have a lot of data and testing that is done, the next course of action is also actually given by AI ML into your app only. So a doctor is just there to say, OK, yes, this is the right corrective action, but that action is actually given by the app itself. So that's how we're creating a differentiator in our product. Jannath, you are the proud winner of National Innovation Contest. Can you please share your experience while participating in NIC? Definitely, NIC has given us that platform wherein we could take a project and move it to an innovation level. So earlier, whatever people used to say, OK, it's just a site project that you're carrying out in your college. But once we participated in NIC, they knew how, what gravity we bring and, you know, we were very desperate for a change in the physiotherapy world, how we can automate things. So the entire journey has been very helpful in this process. You've given us the support, the mentorship, the guidance apart from financial health that we've received. I think the network that the NIC platform provides is commendable. Apart from the prize money, you have received support from the MIC, AICT. How this whole thing helped you in your entrepreneurial journey, other than getting the financial support, Jannath? Definitely, I think network matters a lot. So the immense network that this platform has provided us with is in itself very crucial for us. Being from college, we didn't have an access to a wider network, but during we have had exhibitions, we've had the NIC platform wherein we've met different entrepreneurs altogether and have learned so much from them. You know, if they're making a certain mistake, they share it with us so that, you know, we're cautious enough not to make those mistakes. We wanted a doctor community. So you've given us that community wherein we can go showcase our project, showcase our innovation out there. And once we go out and tell them, okay, we've received funding from NIC, right? So we've received funding. They also have that confidence, okay, these people are serious about their innovation. So why not help them motivate them? So all this has really helped in the support, the network that we've reached out. Yes, Jannath, and it's a very important thing, especially when you are at earliest stage of your entrepreneurial journey. Jannath, how you are ensuring that your product is meeting all quality standards? So I think we take in regular feedback. So it's a feedback mechanism that we're following. So we go test it out on real patients and have feedback forms filled out from them, not just feedback forms. We have team members who sit, who have sat during, you know, a couple of days across have interacted with the patients, with the doctor. Okay, how is the look and feel? How are you feeling? Is it better? Will you wear it? You know, so a market fit also is necessary. So that's how we've approved upon the look and feel. So patients came back to us saying, see, you've put in a lot of sensors. We don't want to wear such a product. It should look like a glove. So that's what helped. Okay, yes, they're right. Actually, why not hide those sensors, conceal them? That's how we were going to look and feel of the product. Then the doctor came to us saying, okay, all this wiring, don't you think it's too much for a patient? They won't actually wear your products seeing all those electric wiring being done. That's when we concealed that, made it concise and concealed everything. So it's a regular feedback mechanism that we are following with the patient, with the doctor. In terms of accuracy, what we are doing is we take the readings with our product and also ask the doctor to take the readings manually so that we can see what is the deviation between the two. And I'm happy that we've now achieved 96% accuracy with our product. And slowly and steadily, we want to achieve that 99%, 100% accuracy going forward. Many medical products, they are very expensive. So how you are ensuring that your product will be a kind of cost effective and readily available to your end user? See, I understand because there is a lot of things that go into biomedical products and that makes it very expensive here. But having said that, we will keep our margins low. We're not working for money here probably. We're working for the betterment of the society and how we can bring about a change in the entire physiotherapies area out there. And we also plan on, you know, so the sensors now that we're using are actually sourced from outside. But we have the capability to manufacture them in-house that will also help us reduce the cost there. Also reaching out to the masses, I think when we have that mass production in place, that's when also the costs come down. So if you probably sell a hundred products and if you probably sell a 1000 product in the market, you have a very difference. You can actually see a difference in cost out there. So we're planning a large scale manufacturing unit from here and cutting down on costs wherever we can be the sensors, where the fabric we are using in the product. Having said that, we'll cut down on our costs, but we will not hamper the quality of our products. So that is very important, maintaining the same quality with the right price. It's very important that, you know, you are not only maintaining the quality but you are also making sure that, you know, that product is available easily to the end user and they can avail it, they can purchase it. So Jannat, you have received support from MIC, AICTE in terms of not only mentoring support, but also financial support. Other than that, have you received any support from other sources as well, maybe in terms of financial or otherwise? I think during this journey, we had invaluable support from our mentors back in college. Dr. Prashant Jindal and Dr. Mamta Juneja have been very kind enough to provide their indispensable support during this journey. Right from the start, be it participating in NIC or during various exhibitions or maybe going out there to test our product, they have been there with us. Apart from this, I think friends, family, my entire team has provided that support. You know, without them, this journey wouldn't have been possible. There were so many lows during the journey that if that motivation and support wasn't there, I think I would have lost in the way here. So that support that I have has been, I am very grateful to it. So many youths are watching this session. If you have to give one piece of advice to the youngsters who are thinking of starting their own venture, what would that be? I think back then, I read this quote from Bacchandri Paul, which said, the biggest risk in life is not to take risks. And this has a very deep meaning. So I would urge all the youngsters, go out there, take risks, but make sure that Calculative risks, not just any risk. Calculative risks have confidence in yourself. Have that network around you who can support you, build you, fly you up higher rather than bringing you down. Have that team with you. The right team helps a lot. So just go out there, be yourself and make us all proud. It's very inspiring. So what plan do you have for the future of this business, Janet? Right. So we are actually planning to go and collaborate with other hospitals in and around the tri-city as well. So currently we were in the testing phase, we were involved with one doctor, one hospital. But we plan on to take on more hospitals, more clinicians, more physiotherapists around our city itself. Then we also plan, we have a manufacturing setup wherein we can actually manufacture 10 products in a month. So we plan to scale that up and ramp that up as well so that we can reach out to the wider audience. Currently we're just focusing on hospitals and clinicians, but I think six months, seven months down the lane, we will also focus direct consumer as well wherein we will bring down cost to a level so that a consumer directly, it can go out to the patients and the patients can also afford it. So that we can mitigate them coming to the hospital, standing in those long queues all together. So that's the plan that we have for the next six to eight months. Janet, do you have a vision for the betterment of our country through this innovation of yours? Definitely, I think I entered and ventured into this medical sector because I had that in me that I want to do something for my country, for the people, for the society. Just there having an engineering degree, I just didn't want to go out into the corporate world having nothing done for the society with the capabilities that I bring in. And hence, I ventured onto this path and I'm very happy when I see older people or people on the rehabilitation journey using my product. It gives me a sense of inner satisfaction in a happiness that I can't put it into words, but then it's just there. Janet, during our conversation, you have mentioned the story of your grandmother. Can you please share, have you discussed about your innovation with her and what was her reaction? Yes, definitely. I think she was the first patient where we tested our product on. So she was very happy. I could see that glowing eyes, the pride that she had when I showed her and now that nobody has to go with her to the hospital for her rehabilitation journey really helped her be on her own and how I being her granddaughter developed this, taking inspiration from her. So that was really good. Janet, how has your journey been as a women entrepreneur? I think I've received a lot of support from other women entrepreneurs as well. So they're actually coming up supporting each other. It's not just taking your innovation. We as a community are building together wherein, yes, we have our ups and downs, but having that support, that peer group in place has really helped us go up and onwards from here. So, yes. Thank you so much, Janet, for joining today's session. Keep inspiring all of us. Thank you so much for having me. Well, innovation in physical therapy have resulted in improving quality and effectiveness of the practice and assisted the patient in accomplishing their goals more quickly. So we will bring you more such game-changing innovations in the next edition of Changemakers. Till then, keep innovating and make world a better place to live. On that positive note, I bid you goodbye. Thanks for watching. Namaskar.