Name : Siddhant Khanna
District & State : Delhi, Delhi
Award : Class 11th – 12th
Award Function : IGNITE 2015 Awards
Award Year : 2015
Innovation Description
IPR Status
In order to help the elderly and the visually challenged, Siddhant has developed a walking stick with many features like counting of steps, medicine reminder, locator, emergency alarm, fall detector and automatic torch.
Siddhant got this idea earlier this year when his 76-year-old maternal grandfather mentioned how it was difficult for him to walk around the house without support. He also said that he fell often, after which he was barely able to shout out for help. “This inspired me to think of a stick that could aid the elderly in walking. After that, I asked my paternal grandparents about their daily problems. My grandmother told how she would forget the exact time and order of her medication, sometimes she would forget where her purse was.My maternal grandmother told me that she kept a torch beside her pillow every night, in case the electricity went out. So I decided to add even more features to my walking stick, trying to get as many parts as possible and learning online how they worked,” says Siddhant, who wants to become a techno-entrepreneur.
Remembering the day he had presented the first prototype of his walking stick to his maternal grandfather,Siddhant says, “He was feeling sleepy so I left it in the balcony without demonstrating it to him. Unfortunately, there was a short circuit in the stick as it rained that day. The following day, when my grandfather saw the stick, he was unaware that it was damaged and began lecturing me on how much time I had wasted on a piece of garbage.However when I explained, he realized his mistake and even bought me a treat to apologize.”
When he is not studying, Siddhant keeps himself occupied with activities like playing the piano, taking Taekwondo classes, photography, building robots and other science projects.
“Technology can significantly improve the quality of life of the masses. My role model is Bill Gates, whose concept of graphical interface based software helped common masses reap benefits of computer due to lower prices and easy access. Having won the IGNITE award, I want to continue making more innovations that could be helpful to mankind,” says Siddhant, whose father is the additional commissioner in the Indian Revenue Services and his mother is a pathologist-entrepreneur. He has a younger sister, studying in class 8.