/ GAZE

Objective and affordable vision screener for children.

FUNDED BY

The Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, under the iFellowship of the School of International Biodesign.

Mentor: Dr. Prashant Jha

TEAM

4 member Inter-disciplinary team

Bree Davide (Registered Nurse)

Brodie Lingard (Biomedical Researcher)

Suteerth Tripathi (Mechantronics engineer)

Manisha Laroia (Product Designer)

DURATION

1 year | 2016

PATENT

Ocular Screening, PCT/IN2017/050561

/ ABOUT

Gaze is a device that enables an objective and affordable method of vision screening for children with refractive errors. The sheer number of young children with poor eyesight, lack of eye-specialists and no access to testing facilities for both children and adult alike; witnessed in the field research, inspired us to build an affordable and indigenous solution. Delayed intervention leads to severe visual impairment, developmental problems, and in some cases, blindness; especially in children.

/ THE PROCESS

The Biodesign process is divided into 4 phases: DISCOVER, DEFINE, DESIGN and DELIVER. As part of the fellowship, we spent the initial Discovery phase in intensive clinical immersion; looking out for problems and opportunities that require high impact solutions which are business viable. We spent over 3 months in the field silently observing, sometimes interacting with the stakeholders and experiencing how healthcare is delivered in various settings ranging from a primary centre to a hospital.

Parallely, secondary research was carried out to understand the functioning and requirements of the health system.

A lot of the research and learning came from the healthcare personnel involved. The Market study involved interviewing stakeholders in India and Australia. It was followed by a stringent needs filtering process to go from 300+ needs to the top 2 needs. We developed a working proof-of concept for bench-testing.