There’s an entrepreneurial lesson that Nihaal Singh Adarsh learnt at a very young age – how to identify a need and then fill the gap.
The 19-year-old from Pune used the lockdown period during the first COVID-19 wave to design a compact ventilation system in Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) that frontline workers have been using all through the pandemic.
What Nihaal has designed
It’s a belt-like wearable ventilation system for PPE kits, called the Cov-Tech Ventilation System. It can be attached to any PPE kit and worn for six to eight hours. The device has been used at Sai Sneh Hospital and Lotus Multi-Speciality Hospital in Pune. It costs Rs 5,499.
How the device works
The plug-and-play device is similar to a simple belt fastened around your waist. You just wear a PPE suit on top of it. The device will draw in fresh air from the outside, filter it through a polypropylene fibre filter and then push it inside the PPE suit. It is a continuous process that maintains a constant airflow.
“The system is reusable because the filter can be changed regularly. The device runs on a high-quality lithium-ion battery that can last up to five hours once fully charged,” said Nihaal, a second-year Electronics Engineering student of KJ Somaiya College of Engineering, Mumbai. “The polypropylene fibre filter costs around Rs 10-15 and has a filtration efficiency of greater than 99%,” he added.
How he got the idea for the device
Since the early days of the pandemic, healthcare workers have been working continuously in PPE kits and experiencing fatigue, dehydration, and risk of fungal and bacterial infections from lack of ventilation.
When COVID-19 hit India in early 2020, Nihaal would see his mother, Pooman Kaur Adarsh, a doctor, spending hours in a PPE kit and getting exhausted from it.
“I would see my mother suffer daily and we discussed the issue of PPE. That’s when I decided to create a ventilation system for such kits,” he said.
What Nihaal did next
In May 2020, the Research Innovation Incubation Design Laboratory at KJ Somaiya College of Engineering organised a design challenge for COVID-19 solutions. Nihaal signed up for it.
After sketching the initial design, he sought permission to travel from Pune to his college campus in Mumbai in mid-May. He started working in the prototype development lab of his college.
“I was alone on the campus during the lockdown and motivating myself was the most difficult task. But I had the support of my family, friends and college,” said Nihaal. His friends Ritwik Marathe and Sayli Bhavasar, students of the same college, pitched in on the project.
Challenges on the way
The first working prototype of the Cov-Tech Ventilation System was created in 21 days, but it took a year to complete clinical tests and other developments. The biggest hurdle was to make the device economical and ensure that it didn’t restrict the movement of the person wearing it.
“Once we created the prototype, we kept on working to improve it and make it commercially viable. We faced some technical issues and received negative feedback during initial testing,” said Nihaal, who formed Watt Technovations to launch the Cov-Tech Ventilation System. Ritwik is the chief design engineer of the product, while Sayli manages the social media handles and promotional aspects of the startup.
Funding for the device and the startup
Nihaal’s innovation has been recognised by the central government. He received a grant of Rs 10 lakh for prototype development and product innovation from the National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovation’s (NIDHI) ‘Promoting and Accelerating Young and Aspiring Technology Entrepreneurs’ (PRAYAS) programme in the science and technology department.
Additionally, Nihaal’s startup Watt Technovations has received a grant of Rs 5 lakh from a new venture investment programme co-hosted by RIIDL and KJ Somaiya Institute of Management.
“The grants have helped me immensely in this endeavour and also inspired me to work harder. Initially, I had no plan to produce the ventilation system commercially but soon realised that the product can provide relief to a lot of frontline workers,” said the aspiring entrepreneur.
Nihaal and his team are now trying to scale up the production to reach more frontline workers.
The device can be bought from the Watt Techvovations website: https://www.watttechnovations.com/
