{"id":17911,"date":"2022-06-10T07:00:17","date_gmt":"2022-06-10T01:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalindian.com\/youth\/\/?post_type=story&p=17911"},"modified":"2025-01-16T15:54:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T10:24:06","slug":"zain-samdani-innovators-robotic-glove-is-helping-paralysed-patients","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/old.globalindian.com\/youth\/story\/cover-story\/zain-samdani-innovators-robotic-glove-is-helping-paralysed-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Zain Samdani: The innovator\u2019s robotic glove is helping patients with paralysed hands \u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

(June 10, 2022)<\/strong> As a 15-year-old visiting India from Saudi Arabia, Zain Samdani had no idea that this family vacation was set to change the course of his life. A meeting with his partially paralysed distant maternal uncle left him “shocked.” In the era of technology, seeing his uncle dependent on others for every small thing was nothing short of a horror. That encounter nudged this robotics enthusiast and innovator to develop Neuro-ExoHeal, an exoskeletal hand rehabilitation device that utilises neuroplasticity and Azure technology to help patients with neurological damage recover faster at an affordable price. The innovation not only left Google CEO Sundar Pichai impressed but also made the 21-year-old win Microsoft 2022 Imagine Cup World Championship, which is considered as the ‘Olympics of Technology’ with more than 10,000 participants from 160 countries.<\/p>\n

“Having been interested in robotics from a very young age, I started working with prosthetic designs in 2013. But I realised that cosmetic prosthetic hand could cost between \u20b91-\u20b92 lakh while a robotic prosthetic hand was available anywhere between \u20b940-\u20b950 lakh. I knew that affordability was the key. But the meeting with my uncle only strengthened my passion to find an affordable solution,” Zain tells\u00a0Global Indian<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Innovator

A robotics enthusiast in the making\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The Hyderabad-born moved to Saudi Arabia at a very young age with his project manager father and homemaker mother. When he noticed that his mom was always busy with household chores and raising kids, the then five-year-old Zain promised to make her a robot that would ease her burden. “It was that early that my love for robotics began,” laughs Zain who is currently in India after wrapping up his first-year exams at Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany.<\/p>\n

For the Ashoka Young Changemaker 2021, it all started with that one idea and later progressed into in-depth research on the subject.\u00a0\u00a0However, things started to move when he began programming at age 12 and within a year, was into prosthetic designs. “For me it’s a two-step process. I visualise the product in my head first, and then make it with a cardboard. Back then 3D printing was booming but was also expensive. To cut the cost, I reached out to Make India, a 3D printing company in Saudi Arabia who sent the code free of cost after hearing about the purpose behind it,” says the innovator whose biggest takeaway from the incident was “to never stop asking.”<\/p>\n

How passion turned into a mission\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The passion turned into a mission after the chance encounter with his paralysed uncle which led him to create ExoHeal. “It was upsetting to see that despite technological advancement in the world, nothing was done to help him move around.” This nudged Zain to build a device based on the concept of neuroplasticity. Divided into a sensory glove for the functional hand and an exoskeletal robotic hand for the paralysed hand, the first prototype came into existence post extensive research and innumerable meetings with neuroscientists and physiotherapists.<\/p>\n

\"Exoheal