The Problem:

There are 63 million people in India who suffer from significant hearing loss. Globally, more than 6% of the world's population, or 460 million people suffer from hearing loss. The communication barrier between the HoH/Deaf and the hearing leads to the isolation of the Deaf community from mainstream society and higher unemployment and lower wages for the Deaf/HoH. Existing solutions such as hearing aids or cochlear implants cost 5-10x the average annual income of the Deaf. Other ‘heads-down’ solutions such as mobile/tablet captioning are inconvenient for Deaf/HoH individuals who depend on visual communication cues. 

The Solution:

TranscribeGlass is an affordable assistive smart-glass for the Hard-of-Hearing and Deaf. It is a nonintrusive wearable heads-up display that captions conversations in real-time. It is a retrofit smart-glass solution that overlays the captioned speech into the user’s field of vision enabling users to simultaneously absorb non-verbal communication cues as well as the actual captions. 

The Problem:

According to the United Nations, around 4 million children in India have disabilities such as paralysis, cerebral palsy or quadriplegia that limit their daily life activities, community access, education and growth. Only 5-15% of these children receive a device. It is often an inappropriate substandard wooden or hospital-style wheelchair due to a lack of regulations and awareness of wheelchair standards and clinical benefits. These products lack postural supports and break down often causing restricted growth, postural deformities and skin injuries that are painful and can cause death which is close to 80% for children with disabilities under five. 

The Solution:

The team proposes to design and commercialize affordable wheelchairs, made in India, for children with cerebral palsy and similar conditions. With essential features like wheelchair adjustability, tilt-in-space and durability and affordability, the product volume can be scaled according to need. The core technology is a mechanism that attaches the seat to the base with a quick-release system that enables rapid disassembly and folding for easy transport. 

The Problem:

India currently produces about 360 million tons of horticulture produce but has cold storage facilities

of less than 40 million tons. While the country as a whole loses food, individual farmers suffer and remain poor because they are forced to sell their perishables at low market prices at harvest times since the produce cannot be preserved.

The Solution:

The team proposes to develop a safe, easy to install, and simple to use environmentally- friendly refrigeration system to provide cold chain/storage at very low running cost for individuals and small communities.  New Leaf has developed GreenCHILL, an environmentally friendly refrigeration system powered by farm waste. This project will focus on improving the thermodynamic performance and low-cost manufacturability of the GreenCHILL system. These improvements will enable compact and highly efficient adsorption components, leading to reduction in the overall size of the system.

The Problem:

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among Indian women, the fourth most common cancer in women worldwide. Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is associated with almost all cervical cancer cases. However, cervical cancer is readily preventable by early detection and treatment of precursor lesions. In India, screening coverage is very low (3.1%) due to several barriers.

The Solution:

The team is working on a novel platform using self-collected samples (urine and/or vaginal swab) for human papillomavirus (HPV) detection. This would be a low-cost, field-operable (minimal training; point-of-care) platform that can detect pathogenic HPV strains. The project’s specific deliverable will be an HPV diagnostic kit and platform consisting of a sample collection kit for preserving and concentrating DNA in self-collected genito-urinary samples, multiplexed loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for HPV, and sealed detection cartridge compatible with Achira Labs instrument (ACIX 100) for detecting LAMP products. 

The Problem:

Neurological conditions such as seizures and epilepsy afflict more than 2 crore people in India. There are 4 lakh new sufferers of epilepsy alone each year. These conditions can have a significant negative impact on the social and economic wellbeing of the sufferer and their family. Diagnosis is the most critical aspect of the treatment as 70% of epilepsies are either curable or manageable. The gold standard diagnostic procedure, Video Electroencephalography (VEEG), requires a patient to be admitted to a hospital facility and monitored continuously over 5-7 days. To make matters worse, the procedure may need to be repeated multiple times due to many reasons including technical glitches.

The Solution:

The team proposes to develop and commercialize an affordable ambulatory 24-channel clinical grade robotic Video Electroencephalography (VEEG) solution for the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological conditions such as seizures, epilepsy, sleep and movement disorders affecting millions.  The patent-pending solution automates most of the tasks that were previously performed manually by hospital staff.