IIT Madras announced the handing over of indigenously developed ‘YD One’ ultra-lightweight wheelchairs to the Army Hospital (Research and Referral), the apex medical facility of the Armed Forces Medical Services under India’s Ministry of Defence, located in New Delhi. A 1,200-bed quaternary care institution, it serves serving Armed Forces personnel, ex-servicemen, their dependents, war widows, and other entitled beneficiaries. The ‘YD One’ wheelchairs are manufactured by Thryv Mobility, an IIT Madras-incubated company specialising in the design and manufacture of ultra-lightweight active wheelchairs. These wheelchairs have been developed at IIT Madras’s TTK Center for Rehabilitation Research and Device Development (R2D2) in collaboration with Thryv Mobility, with co-design input from wheelchair users.
Highlighting the importance of this initiative, Lt General Avinash Das, Commandant, Army Hospital (R&R), said, “Mobility is fundamental to dignity and independence. We welcome this contribution from IIT Madras and Fiserv, which will directly support our patients and their families in regaining and maintaining mobility through devices designed and built in India.”
Its makers describe ‘YD One’ as a wheelchair that helps users to self-propel. The wheelchairs handed over to Army Hospital (Research and Referral) will be used within the hospital’s rehabilitation programme, introducing patients to active mobility as part of their rehabilitation journey and demonstrating that independent, self-propelled movement is achievable.
Explaining the uniqueness and salient features of the ‘YD One’, Poornachandran, a wheelchair user for 15 years, said that the product is significantly lighter than the five other models he had used in the past. “I’ve been using the YD One for a year. I have to self-propel (push) the wheelchair for 5-6 km every day, and this lighter wheelchair takes me forward five metres, as opposed to the heavier models that took me forward by about two metres. It is easier to manoeuvre a lighter wheelchair, and it is also convenient for transporting in cars or on two-wheelers. I even took part in a wheelchair marathon and was able to clock a kilometre in about six minutes,” added the wheelchair skills programme lead at the National Centre for Assistive Health Technology.
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Retired Indian Naval officer Rear Admiral Deepak Bansal played an instrumental role in forging civil-military fusion, besides mentoring young faculty and connecting academia, industry, and the military establishment with the objective of reaching indigenous assistive technologies for those in need. He serves as a Professor of Practice at IIT Madras, and operates as the Head of Strategic Partnerships at Thryv Mobility.
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The handover of 25 wheelchairs marks the first tranche of a 100-wheelchair programme being implemented by IIT Madras under a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) partnership funded by Fiserv, the global provider of payments and financial technology services. The remaining 75 wheelchairs will be delivered in subsequent batches over the coming months.
