When a senior citizen or a physically-challenged/bedridden person staying alone faces a medical emergency, he/she would have no way of immediately reaching out to their loved ones.
This prompted rural innovator Kurakula Pavan to come up with the ‘Emergency Health Intimation’ device. The GSM-based device is equipped with a SIM card and remotely connects a bedridden person to five friends or relatives. All one has to do is plug the device into a power socket near one’s bed (which works for 48 hours on battery support). In case of an emergency, the person has to simply touch the vibrating sensor-based device that not only blares an alarm to alert the neighbours, but also calls five pre-registered mobile numbers across the globe. “The calls go out on a rotation basis to each of the five numbers, till someone reaches the spot to reset the device,” Mr. Pavan told The Hindu .
Mr. Pavan said that the device would infuse confidence and courage among senior citizens who are staying alone in villages. “My friend’s ailing parent died of a cardiac arrest and his inability to convey it to his son sleeping in the adjoining air-conditioned room prompted me to come up with an invention that could bridge the communication gap,” Mr. Pavan said.
Hailing from the little-known Moram village in Palamaner mandal of Chittoor district, Mr. Pavan is widely acclaimed as a rural innovator who received the ‘Young Scientist’ award in 2009 from A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. He is known for applying principles of basic science to address small, yet pressing problems in rural areas.
Many achievements
His first major invention was to remotely operate a water pump, which helped save farmers’ lives from electric shocks and snakebites. Some of his innovations are a home burglar alarm, honey bee-like buzzing sound to ward off tuskers from fields in forest fringe villages, rural FM station, heartbeat monitoring system, two-wheeler security system, power generation from ceiling fan, self-operating street light system for civic bodies and so on, developed in over a decade’s time through his ‘Pavan Empower Solutions’.
These won him laurels, with some of his endeavours also fetching him commercial success.
Mr. Pavan recently received an award from the National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD Hyderabad) for the device that is reckoned as a path-breaking intervention in ensuring rural healthcare.
