Speaking at the National Ability Summit (NAS), a virtual event meant to create awareness about disability, founders of several Indian startups on Wednesday shared their ideas, experiences and the purpose of their services.

The session, ‘Starable- Startups for the disabled’, saw participation by Torchit, Sm Learning Skill Academy for Special Needs, TurnPlus, Kickstart services and DeepVisionTech.

In the panel discussion, Manu Kohli, founder of Sm Learning Skill Academy for Special Needs, said that his child being diagnosed with autism at an early age became his biggest motivation to develop CogniABle, a platform that detects early childhood developmental delays based on Artificial Intelligence.

“After witnessing accidents in life prompted me to build an affordable assisted device for the visually impaired,” said Hunny Bhagchandani, the founder of Torchit, a firm that helps visually impaired to move from one place to another without anyone’s assistance.

Anand Kutre, the founder of TurnPlus, a firm that provides vehicles that are easy to use and install to help the disabled people with driving, said he “wanted to do innovation in India”.

“The focus is to help people to be independent so that they can be a part of the mainstream,” he said.

Srikrishnan S, the co-founder of Kickstart, India’s first wheelchair-accessible public transport service, told moderator Hardeep Rai that till date the firm has provided over 1 lakh rides to people. 

Jayasudan Munsamy, founder of DeepVisionTech, world’s first-ever application that enables sign language to do two-way communication, described his experience from not knowing sign language or the deaf culture to having hearing-impaired employees in his firm.

“I started learning sign language, started approaching the NGOs, few schools and even few interpreters to understand the language. Since then we have come a long way,” he said. 

Talking about the startup ecosystem in India, Kohli mentioned that the government plays a vital role in supporting the entrepreneurship spirit of the country. 

Sharing the interesting experiences of their startup journeys, the panel agreed that there has been a reluctance from the people to pay for the services.

“There is a reluctance to pay for the service was one of the challenges,” said Srikrishnan. 

“How society judges you about what you’re doing with your life is difficult. At the same time, I was facing rejection from the visually impaired community, who wanted to buy my product but didn’t want to pay, “Bhagchandani added.

All the participants also received awards on behalf of Varija Life for their efforts to improve the lives of the disabled community.

Hardeep Rai, the Founder and Group CEO of the Kaleidoscope Group moderated the first session of the NAS.

The first-ever edition of NAS that is taking place virtually in India is spearheaded by Varija Life, a Not for Profit Organisation under fashion and lifestyle brand Varija Bajaj.

The two events that started on December 2 will see some of the acclaimed names from media, films, fashion, and lifestyle, speaking on the need to create awareness on disability and creating an environment for them where they feel welcomed.

The topics of discussion at the summit include Employment and Human Resource for People with Disabilities (PWD), Assistive Technology, Mental Health, Adaptive Clothing, Art and Films for and by PWD, Digital Accessibility, Infrastructural Accessibility and Startups focusing on mental and physical needs of PWD.

The main focus of the NAS is to provide a platform to world leaders from government bodies, educational institutions, health institutions, private and public sectors to share their learning curve and collectively draw a 360-degree approach to address physical and mental health for the global community at large.