A month-long workshop on biodesign and innovation jointly conducted by IIT Delhi and AIIMS has developed several protyptes that can open new vistas in the medical domain.

Besides faculty from the two institutions, the workshop, that concluded recently had mentors from School of International Biodesign, AIIMS, New Delhi. It brought together 15 students from IIT Delhi and 15 MBBS students from AIIMS on a common platform to identify important health care needs and invent technologies to address them.

“The goal of the workshop was essentially to produce a prototype of an innovative medical device. This workshop was also designed to give insights into what innovators have to go through, to come out with viable business products,” says Neetu Singh, coordinator of the workshop.

As many as 15 students from IITDelhi and 15 from the 3rd year MBBS program at AIIMS were selected for the workshop. The students worked in teams and identified the needs by extensive immersion process such as visiting AIIMS OPDs, meeting with various stakeholders and discussions with IIT faculty.

“I got to know about various areas, which one goes through while designing a product/ service- how market works, design (prototype), business (elevator pitch, lean canvas),” Arti Yadav one of the participants says.

Dittos Mudit Agarwal. “The best part about this workshop was the contacts and connections I built in IIT Delhi. It helped me delve into various areas of designing.”

“This workshop has given me insights into what innovators have to go through to come out with viable business products,” maintains Keerthi Sagar.

Clinical immersion, problem identification, creation of prototype, options of solutions and choice of solutions were some of the components of the workshop.

The prototypes that were developed during the workshop included-- device for controlling Obstructive Sleep Apnea, a novel video-laryngoscope for reduced mouth opening, method for continuous measurement of ICP through a non-invasive way, method to reduce inter observer variability in jugular venous pressure measurement and a Broadcasting Stethoscope that can help in medical teaching.

The workshop was conducted by Prof. PVM Rao, Prof. Neetu Singh and Dr. Avijit Bansal (School of International Biodesign, AIIMS).