The Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Rajiv Bahl, on Saturday said that the Centre was keen on reducing the country’s dependence on import and provide high quality, affordable assistive technologies to every person in need.
Dr. Bahl launched the National Center for Assistive Health Technologies at the IIT Madras Research Park (NCAHT-IITM), an initiative of ICMR that aimed to boost research and development in assistive technologies. He said people with different kinds of disabilities now had to either compromise on quality or pay a huge price for such assistive technology products.
He said the Centre had a list of 40 such technologies, which it wanted to be made available to all those in need. He said the Centre’s vision could be fulfilled only through ventures like the NCAHT-IITM. He especially liked the mechanisms put in place for user-developer interactions at the centre, which will help in receiving feedback from the users and develop products that met their needs.
V. Kamakoti, director, IIT Madras, said it was committed to inclusive education, addressing both academic and social needs of people with physical challenges. “The experiential nature of this centre will help take these efforts to the next level in terms of mobility and accessibility to resources,” he said.
The NCAHT-IITM will act as a platform for user-developer and user-policymaker interactions and, at the same time, serve as a training resource for assistive technologies and rehabilitation professionals and non-governmental organisations, a release from IIT Madras said.
NCAHT-IITM will primarily focus on mobility impairments while the NCAHTs at IIT Delhi, AIIMS Delhi, and National Institute of Speech and Hearing, Thiruvananthapuram focus on other disabilities.
Ashok Jhunjhunwala, President, IIT Madras Research Park, said the centre aligned with the research park’s 10X Assistive Technology Program designed to help start-ups develop devices, improve the devices based on user feedback, and finally commercialise the technologies.
Sujatha Srinivasan, Head, NCAHT-IITM, said the centre would help strengthen the assistive technology ecosystem that had been created already at the TTK Center for Rehabilitation Research and Device Development (R2D2) at IIT Madras and change the assistive technology landscape in India and beyond. The new centre was implemented by R2D2.
A new programme, consisting of a set of self-training video modules developed in partnership with The Ganga Foundation, was launched to empower wheelchair users to train and upskill themselves in the use of wheelchairs and enhance their independence.
