HYDERABAD: Uttam Grandhi, 32, never imagined that his passion for origami, the Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes and figures, would inspire him to think of masks and face shields from a thin sheet of paper and use it for making a do-it-yourself PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) kit especially to fight Coronavirus.
One that can be made in as less as Rs 500, using household things. PPE typically specialised clothing or equipment worn by employees for protection against health and safety hazards covering eyes, head, face, hands, feet, and ears etc.
“With the shortage of PPE across the world, it’s essential to think about solutions that are easily replicable in a city or even in a remote village. We have shared the designs with doctors and got preliminary feedback. We now plan to set up local chapters in India/US to create these kits and give them to doctors for testing. This PPE can be put together in less than an hour. I’m positive that creating DIY PPE becomes a household thing post-Corona. We foresee, it being taught in schools to prepare for future contingencies. The entire kit can be put together for under Rs 500 (Mask: Rs 120, face shield: Rs 70, rain suit: Rs 300). The maximum cost is of the rain suit,” Uttam says.
As there is a deficit of protection kits throughout the world this could help people make their own low-cost personal protection kits (masks, face shields, and bodysuits),” says the team comprising Uttam, an NYU-ITP and BITS-Pilani alumnus, co-Founder of Robust Tech Systems, Anirudh Sharma an MIT Alumnus, Co-Founder of LeChal/Graviky; Mourvi Sharma, a Harvard University alumnus and Rahul Budhiraja is a University of Canterbury alumnus.
While Uttam is working on the prototyping and rapid evaluation efforts in the US and Anirudh is leading the funding, and Rahul is working on manufacturing.
“We are bringing in subject matter experts to the team to evaluate our designs and start local chapters for making the PPE kits soon. We have also received inquiries from hospitals in India as well as US on replicating the kits in their local community. Just today, we received a mail from a large conglomerate with an interest to partner and create 100,000 PPE kits,” the team adds.
The team is waiting to tick off all the boxes before they can take it in a big way into the world.