Walk to Beat : Finalist WA Innovator of the Year 2022
Smart assisted living products empowering the ageing population
The panel discussion paves such concrete ground with use-cases of human enhancements through technologies that improve the daily lives of people with disabilities or diseases. It debates the challenges and opportunities that innovation stakeholders face for the deployment of such products and services and on the proposal to progress in a new collaborative paradigm so we, humans, are not shackled by the outdated mass production/consumption model of the 20th century.
Moderator:
Catharine Simon, President at Innorobo-INNOECHO
Panellists:
The global dev community meets at WeAreDevelopers, an event dubbed by many as the “Woodstock of Developers”. The WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2018 brought together 8,000 techies from 70 countries for 72 hours of pure dev-fun.
A new walking stick is helping people with Parkinson’s Disease retain their mobility and independence.
The stick can sense when a user’s limbs have seized up, and then vibrates in a way that helps them to regain their rhythm, and start walking again.
Watch the video A student entrepreneur whose grandfather was debilitated by Parkinson’s disease has created a mobility aid to improve the lives of other patients with the condition.
Neha Shahid Chaudhry was inspired to invent a ‘smart’ walking stick after witnessing her late granddad struggle with the disease for seven years, repeatedly suffering falls when his joints seized up.
The device detects when a user’s limbs have frozen and they cannot continue walking. Recognising a pause in motion, the stick vibrates to help the patient regain their rhythm and get moving again.
Product design technology graduate Neha, of the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), hopes her invention can benefit half the 127,000 Parkinson’s patients in Britain who regularly experience joint freezing and abnormal gait symptoms.
It has already been successfully tested among dozens of Parkinson’s patients, and the NHS and Parkinson’s UK charity have expressed an interest in her product.
Neha, 23, founder of start-up company Walk to Beat, has been overwhelmed by the response to the technology.
Read the full article
A short Q&A session with Neha from Walk To Beat reflecting on the experience in collaborating with RIF@Bristol.
