HOPE

A simple, Inclusive Retrofittable product that enables the Blind to consume Liquid medicines precisely and to distinguish between liquid medicine bottles!

There are 45 million Blind and 250 million visually impaired all over the world!

India is the home to the world’s largest percentage of blind people. Of the entire blind population across the globe, over 15 million are from India.

But Only 10% of the blind population in India knows braille (Blind reading Language) but all the existing products are being made in braille failing to cater to the needs of the majority of the community.

Medications, being one of the basic necessities of lives, Knowing Braille shouldn’t be a barrier from them being independent.

Moreover, due to their inability to consume precise medicines, they are exposed to multiple health hazards.

Till today there hasn’t been any solution that enables the Blind to consume liquid medications and such a crucial problem has been overlooked for all these years.

All the products available for measuring liquid medicines works on the visual aspect only which is not beneficial for the Blind. 

Every time they try using the measuring cup, the medicine overflows & spills all over the surroundings.

They try using their finger, by dipping it to make sure the medicine does not overfill, but the process is very UNHYGIENIC  & not precise.

It gets even more difficult and confusing to select the right medicine bottle when 2 bottles look & feel exactly the same and moreover most of the liquid medicine bottles have similar forms. 

Due to their inability to consume precise medicines, it leads to under-dosing, overdosing, missing out of dosages and not completing treatment courses and in turn they are exposed to multiple health hazards.

Overdose would adversely affect and cause long-term health issues such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension, & epilepsy.

With the blinds finding themselves being covered with lots of challenges in daily life, we try to make their conditions bit convenient by serving them provision to their problems faced while consuming liquid medicines, as our product provide a completely new experience of self administrating liquid medicines.

Difficulties in administering medicines have led to under-dosing, overdosing, missing out of doses and not completing treatment courses.

A simple, Inclusive Retrofittable product that enables the Blind to consume Liquid medicines precisely and to distinguish between liquid medicine bottles!

HOPE is a simple product that aims in enabling the Blind & making them independent.

HOPE has a completely new approach, it serves a whole new experience of measuring liquid medicines. It uses both audible & tactile senses for precise measurement, enabling blind to consume medicine precisely & distinguish between medicines.

With a new technology inspired by the amalgamation of the unique abilities of a traditional syringe (To suck the liquid) and the paper cutter (Produces a click sound with every controlled movement up, the blade comes out).

This new technology ensures that, the top component (Plunger) moves up in a controlled movement and it gives both tactile and Audible (clicking sound) feedback for every 2.5 ml of medicine sucked in.

The caps have distinct colours & highly unique texture so that, those who are completely blind can differentiate between medicines using the texture and those who are visually impaired can figure out by both bright colours & textures.

I have chosen textures instead of braille because -Braille cannot work due to a large population of illiteracy, Due to their extra sensitivity in their touch senses, these unique textures will ease things out.

15 million Blind, 250 million visually impaired.

I believe HOPE will be a revolutionary beginning & will serve them when it comes to Liquid medications!

HOPE revolves around the Healthcare sector for the Blind & the Visually Impaired.

The primary user of this product will be Blind people who consume liquid medicine. It can also cater to the Visually impaired as well.

Medications, being one of the basic necessities of lives, Knowing Braille shouldn’t be a barrier from them being independent.

Moreover, due to their inability to consume precise medicines, they are exposed to multiple health hazards.

Till today there hasn’t been any solution that enables the Blind to consume liquid medications and such a crucial problem has been overlooked for all these years.

Hello, Namaste, Vanakkam, this is Siddharth UR from India, a creative and empathetic being. I am listed in the Forbes 30 under 30 class of 2023, India (To be disclosed soon), an exhibitor at Prototypes for humanity 2022, Dubai and an 85 international design awards winner. My work focuses on saving and improving people’s lives worldwide by creating meaningful design solutions. I’m an Industrial Design undergraduate from the National Institute of Design(NID), Haryana, India. I secured All India 1st rank in the NID, Haryana admissions 2016. Currently, I am working full-time as an Experience Designer with Philips Healthcare at the Philips Innovation Campus, Research and development, Bangalore, India, with an aim to reimagine the future of healthcare through design.

My work focuses on creating meaningful Design solutions(System, Service, Product UX) to create a serious positive impact on the planet that I live on and I focus on improving lives all over the globe through what I am super passionate about. My work mostly addresses the Sustainable development goals of the UN. 

I believe, me being an Industrial/UX Designer I believe my skills and my understanding of design thinking processes can help in saving and improving lives and towards a sustainable and resilient future. 

I am a Design Thinker who can address real-world challenges through balancing high levels of creativity and technical capability with contextual insights and intense empathy for people. 

I am an industrial design undergraduate from the National Institute of Design, Haryana, India. I have design and innovation skills in the research and development of products. My college was situated in between agricultural lands and every day I go for a walk I could observe, empathise with the locals and understand their lives, their problems and their experiences. I have lived and co-created the solution with them.

Throughout this project I tried spending most of the time in different blind schools with blind people from different age, context, cultures, socio-economic status to understand them better and trying to absorb their natural way of life and using their everyday small intuitive actions into my ideation process.

Building Empathy, Both primary and secondary research to understand the Blind, their life, their struggles, their strengths and weaknesses. To get first hand experience with medicine consumption for the Blind from various stakeholders like doctors, nurses, caretakers, blind patient and pharmacist. Meeting and interacting with family members, loved ones and caretakers to individually living blind people.

I am very passionate about understanding people and what they value, specifically working together with people form different cultures is something that really intrigues me. One important part of the project was the experience of working with different people from various cultures and contexts. Understanding the needs and requirements of underprivileged people and working towards designing solutions for them.

1. HOPE is first of its kind to cater to the blind community.

2. All the products available for measuring liquid medicines works on the visual aspect only which is not beneficial for the Blind. But Hope has a completely approach.

3. The problems related to wrong dosage of medicines & health hazards in blind will be massively reduced.

4. This product makes the blind more independent & makes their life experience more hassle-free.

5. HOPE is retrofittable, it could be attached to any existing liquid medicine bottle!

6. HOPE also caters to the Visually impaired.

7. It not only caters to Blind & Visually impaired it will also cater to everyone who wants to consume liquid medicine! Since it provides a very comfortable & enriched user experience for everyone who consume liquid medicines, it makes the process of consuming liquid medicines more hassle-free & comfortable!

8. HOPE would serve as a back support for them, upsurging a scope for betterment in the Healthcare sector.

HOPE has a completely new approach, it serves a whole new experience of measuring liquid medicines. It uses both audible & tactile senses for precise measurement, enabling blind to consume medicine precisely & distinguish between medicines.

With a new technology inspired by the amalgamation of the unique abilities of a traditional syringe (To suck the liquid) and the paper cutter (Produces a click sound with every controlled movement up, the blade comes out).

This new technology ensures that, the top component (Plunger) moves up in a controlled movement and it gives both tactile and Audible (clicking sound) feedback for every 2.5 ml of medicine sucked in.

The caps have distinct colours & highly unique texture so that, those who are completely blind can differentiate between medicines using the texture and those who are visually impaired can figure out by both bright colours & textures.

I have chosen textures instead of braille because -Braille cannot work due to a large population of illiteracy, Due to their extra sensitivity in their touch senses, these unique textures will ease things out.

1. To set up a team of engineers to refine the proof of concept and test it out on real users and end users to develop the final working prototype.

2. Set up and establish a business model with the product HOPE with the help of industry experts and investors and the goal is to roll out the product to as many as rural healthcare centres as possible.

I would love to have an interdisciplinary of an engineer and a business man to help me towards the goal. I am exactly not sure about the number of full-time people but I am open to working this out while working on setting up the team.

HOPE has a completely new approach, it serves a whole new experience of measuring liquid medicines. It uses both audible & tactile senses for precise measurement, enabling blind to consume medicine precisely & distinguish between medicines.

With a new technology inspired by the amalgamation of the unique abilities of a traditional syringe (To suck the liquid) and the paper cutter (Produces a click sound with every controlled movement up, the blade comes out).

This new technology ensures that, the top component (Plunger) moves up in a controlled movement and it gives both tactile and Audible (clicking sound) feedback for every 2.5 ml of medicine sucked in.

The caps have distinct colours & highly unique texture so that, those who are completely blind can differentiate between medicines using the texture and those who are visually impaired can figure out by both bright colours & textures.

I have chosen textures instead of braille because -Braille cannot work due to a large population of illiteracy, Due to their extra sensitivity in their touch senses, these unique textures will ease things out.

15 million Blind, 250 million visually impaired.

I believe HOPE will be a revolutionary beginning & will serve them when it comes to Liquid medications!

HOPE revolves around the Healthcare sector for the Blind & the Visually Impaired.

The global visual impairment market is estimated to be valued at US$ 4,362.8 million in 2020 and is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 8.1% over the forecast period (2020-2027).

Rising prevalence of visual impairment & blindness and growing prevalence of eye disorders are expected to drive the market growth over the forecast period . The increasing prevalence of visual impairment & blindness is a major factor responsible for growth of the global visual impairment market. For instance, as per World Health Organization (WHO), at least 1 billion people had a near or distance vision impairment globally in 2019.

Furthermore, increasing prevalence of eye disorders such as diabetic retinopathy, refractive error, glaucoma, cataract, and age-related macular degeneration is projected to increase the number of visually impaired people globally, thereby fueling demand for assistive technologies in visual impairment. This will, in turn, drive growth of the global visual impairment market. For instance, as per World Glaucoma Association, it is estimated that 79.6 million individuals will have glaucoma in 2020. This number is likely to increase to 111.8 million individuals in 2040.

India, home to the world’s largest number of the blind. And this number is continuously growing due to multiple reasons in today's time. In India, out of the 15 million blind people only 10% of this population knows braille (Blind reading language), all the existing products are continuously providing services in Braille for ages, hence failing to cater to a major section of the population.

HOPE also caters to Visually impaired, so the demand for this product is even more expanded to around 250 million visually impaired globally!

There is a really huge demand for this product which is continuously growing every day as the number of blind people is increasing due to multiple reasons like Diabetes at old age, Cataract, Glaucoma Etc.

HOPE does not only cater to Blind & Visually impaired it would also cater to everyone who wants to consume liquid medicine! Since it provides a very comfortable & enriched user experience for everyone who consumes liquid medications, it makes the process of consuming liquid medicines more hassle-free & comfortable which makes its market even more huge.

I believe there would be a point where every liquid medicine bottle in the world would come along with HOPE as an attachment to enhance everyone's experience of consuming liquid medicine!

HOPE is not only restricted to the Healthcare Industry, it also has scope to be used in different Industries where precise measurement of liquids is required. For example, HOPE would play an important role in Research & Biological labs, Kitchen industry(Measuring tools), Body wellness (Luxury Market) ETC.

1. HOPE is at an early stage of its journey and still needs to be refined to be tested with users.

2. I am working on it alone right now, I am in the process of building a team with multiple expertise to make HOPE a reality.

Currently, we are looking for collaboration and partnerships.

HOPE is still in the prototype stage and has yet to reach the manufacturing stage. At this stage, we are still working out the business model and looking for investors and mentors who would guide us in establishing a business model.

HOPE is still in the prototype stage and has yet to reach the manufacturing stage. At this stage, we are still working out the business model and looking for investors and mentors who would guide us in establishing a business model.