Robo Rehab
KJ Somaiya College Mumbai
Physiotherapy patients routinely perform a prescribed sequence of repetitive exercises as part of their rehabilitation plan. Recognizing the monotony that such patients experience, Team Robo-Rehab devised a robotic rehabilitation device that gamified physiotherapy exercises to make rehabilitation more fun. The team joined the I-NCUBATE program wanting to get clarity on how to develop their product better.
The team started off in right earnest by speaking to a gamut of customers from large and small clinics, private hospitals, government hospitals and freelancers. In a couple of weeks, they discovered that that there was significant variation in the needs of each of these segments. They could not serve all the needs of all these customers. In their early interviews, the team’s focus had been checking for their product features, as a result of which they had ignored what really mattered to each customer segment.
As they continued their customer discovery, the Robo-Rehab team sized their market and narrowed in on specific customer segments. They identified the actual needs of these segments by looking for evidence, and by the end of the program were able to chalk out a plan for the customers they could start serving. Using their learning from I-NCUBATE, the Robo-Rehab team proceeded to develop their prototype with clinical partners and subsequently secured a grant from BIRAC. They have gone on to develop their MVP and look forward to starting clinical testing.
