WEBVTT

00:00:00.996 --> 00:00:03.898
In India, we have these huge families.

00:00:03.898 --> 00:00:06.429
I'll bet a lot of you all
must have heard about it.

00:00:06.429 --> 00:00:09.958
Which means that there are
a lot of family events.

00:00:09.958 --> 00:00:11.723
So as a child, my parents

00:00:11.723 --> 00:00:14.556
used to drag me to these family events.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:14.556 --> 00:00:17.388
But the one thing
that I always looked forward to

00:00:17.388 --> 00:00:19.850
was playing around with my cousins,

00:00:19.850 --> 00:00:22.427
and there was always this one uncle

00:00:22.427 --> 00:00:23.774
who used to be there,

00:00:23.774 --> 00:00:25.794
always ready, jumping around with us,

00:00:25.794 --> 00:00:27.257
having games for us,

00:00:27.257 --> 00:00:30.832
making us kids have the time of our lives.

00:00:30.832 --> 00:00:33.456
This man was extremely successful:

00:00:33.456 --> 00:00:36.126
he was confident and powerful.

00:00:36.126 --> 00:00:41.420
But then I saw this hale and hearty person
deteriorate in health.

00:00:41.420 --> 00:00:44.949
He was diagnosed with Parkinson's.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:44.949 --> 00:00:48.990
Parkinson's is a disease that causes
degeneration of the nervous system,

00:00:48.990 --> 00:00:51.753
which means that this person
who used to be independent

00:00:51.753 --> 00:00:57.975
suddenly finds tasks like drinking coffee,
because of tremors, much more difficult.

00:00:57.975 --> 00:01:00.715
My uncle started using a walker to walk,

00:01:00.715 --> 00:01:05.963
and to take a turn, he literally had
to take one step at a time, like this,

00:01:05.963 --> 00:01:08.331
and it took forever.

00:01:08.331 --> 00:01:11.651
So this person, who used to be
the center of attention

00:01:11.651 --> 00:01:13.718
in every family gathering,

00:01:13.718 --> 00:01:16.597
was suddenly hiding behind people.

00:01:16.597 --> 00:01:20.637
He was hiding from the pitiful look
in people's eyes.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:20.637 --> 00:01:23.029
And he's not the only one in the world.

00:01:23.029 --> 00:01:28.555
Every year, 60,000 people
are newly diagnosed with Parkinson's,

00:01:28.555 --> 00:01:31.945
and this number is only rising.

00:01:31.945 --> 00:01:38.005
As designers, we dream that our designs
solve these multi-faceted problems,

00:01:38.005 --> 00:01:40.675
one solution that solves it all,

00:01:40.675 --> 00:01:43.810
but it need not always be like that.

00:01:43.810 --> 00:01:46.666
You can also target simple problems

00:01:46.666 --> 00:01:51.286
and create small solutions for them
and eventually make a big impact.

00:01:51.286 --> 00:01:54.514
So my aim here was
to not cure Parkinson's,

00:01:54.514 --> 00:01:57.904
but to make their everyday tasks
much more simple,

00:01:57.904 --> 00:02:00.225
and then make an impact.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:00.225 --> 00:02:04.382
Well, the first thing I targeted
was tremors, right?

00:02:04.382 --> 00:02:09.118
My uncle told me that he had stopped
drinking coffee or tea in public

00:02:09.118 --> 00:02:11.185
just out of embarrassment,

00:02:11.185 --> 00:02:15.225
so, well, I designed the no-spill cup.

00:02:15.225 --> 00:02:18.151
It works just purely on its form.

00:02:18.151 --> 00:02:23.352
The curve on top deflects the liquid
back inside every time they have tremors,

00:02:23.352 --> 00:02:26.788
and this keeps the liquid inside
compared to a normal cup.

00:02:26.788 --> 00:02:31.989
But the key here is that it is not tagged
as a Parkinson's patient product.

00:02:31.989 --> 00:02:36.540
It looks like a cup that could be used
by you, me, any clumsy person,

00:02:36.540 --> 00:02:40.710
and that makes it much more comforting
for them to use, to blend in.

00:02:42.103 --> 00:02:44.472
So, well, one problem solved,

00:02:44.472 --> 00:02:46.817
many more to go.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:46.817 --> 00:02:49.789
All this while, I was interviewing him,

00:02:49.789 --> 00:02:51.020
questioning him,

00:02:51.020 --> 00:02:54.549
and then I realized that I was getting
very superficial information,

00:02:54.549 --> 00:02:57.219
or just answers to my questions.

00:02:57.219 --> 00:03:01.097
But I really needed to dig deeper
to get a new perspective,

00:03:01.097 --> 00:03:04.835
so I thought, well,
let's observe him in his daily tasks,

00:03:04.835 --> 00:03:07.923
while he's eating, while he's watching TV.

00:03:07.923 --> 00:03:12.033
And then, when I was actually
observing him walking to his dining table,

00:03:12.033 --> 00:03:17.002
it struck me, this man who finds it
so difficult to walk on flat land,

00:03:17.002 --> 00:03:19.416
how does he climb a staircase?

00:03:19.416 --> 00:03:23.387
Because in India we do not have
a fancy rail that takes you up a staircase

00:03:23.387 --> 00:03:25.268
like in the developed countries.

00:03:25.268 --> 00:03:27.938
One actually has to climb the stairs.

00:03:27.938 --> 00:03:29.331
So he told me,

00:03:29.331 --> 00:03:32.094
"Well, let me show you how I do it."

00:03:32.094 --> 00:03:34.439
Let's take a look at what I saw.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:34.439 --> 00:03:39.803
So he took really long
to reach this position,

00:03:39.803 --> 00:03:41.451
and then all this while, I'm thinking,

00:03:41.451 --> 00:03:44.028
my God, is he really going to do it?

00:03:44.028 --> 00:03:46.652
Is he really, really going to do it
without his walker?

00:03:46.652 --> 00:03:48.254
And then...

00:03:51.087 --> 00:03:53.688
(Laughter)

00:03:56.892 --> 00:03:59.841
And the turns,
he took them so easily.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:01.443 --> 00:04:03.184
So shocked?

00:04:03.184 --> 00:04:05.785
Well, I was too.

00:04:05.785 --> 00:04:10.521
So, this person who could not
walk on flat land

00:04:10.521 --> 00:04:13.911
was suddenly a pro at climbing stairs.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:13.911 --> 00:04:18.137
On researching this, I realized that
it's because it's a continuous motion.

00:04:18.137 --> 00:04:21.783
There's this other man
who also suffers from the same symptoms

00:04:21.783 --> 00:04:23.153
and he uses a walker,

00:04:23.153 --> 00:04:25.098
but the moment he's put on a cycle,

00:04:25.098 --> 00:04:26.932
all his symptoms vanish,

00:04:26.932 --> 00:04:29.556
because it is a continuous motion.

00:04:29.556 --> 00:04:33.967
So the key for me was to translate
this feeling of walking on a staircase

00:04:33.967 --> 00:04:35.839
back to flat land.

00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:38.904
And a lot of ideas were tested
and tried on him,

00:04:38.904 --> 00:04:42.643
but the one that finally worked
was this one. Let's take a look.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:46.172 --> 00:04:49.399
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:53.045
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:53.416 --> 00:04:55.970
He walked faster, right?

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:55.970 --> 00:04:59.430
(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:59.430 --> 00:05:03.412
I call this the staircase illusion,

00:05:03.412 --> 00:05:06.872
and actually when the staircase illusion
abruptly ended, he froze,

00:05:06.872 --> 00:05:08.892
and this is called freezing of gait.

00:05:08.892 --> 00:05:12.096
So it happens a lot, so why not have
a staircase illusion

00:05:12.096 --> 00:05:14.000
flowing through all their rooms,

00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:17.390
making them feel much more confident?

00:05:17.390 --> 00:05:20.176
You know, technology is not always it.

00:05:20.176 --> 00:05:23.102
What we need are human-centered solutions.

00:05:23.102 --> 00:05:25.285
I could have easily
made it into a projection,

00:05:25.285 --> 00:05:27.583
or a Google Glass, or something like that.

00:05:27.583 --> 00:05:30.393
But I stuck to simple print of the floor.

00:05:30.393 --> 00:05:33.202
This print could be taken into hospitals

00:05:33.202 --> 00:05:36.383
to make them feel much more welcome.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:36.383 --> 00:05:39.889
What I wish to do is make
every Parkinson's patient

00:05:39.889 --> 00:05:42.142
feel like my uncle felt that day.

00:05:42.142 --> 00:05:46.716
He told me that I made him feel
like his old self again.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:46.716 --> 00:05:52.033
"Smart" in today's world
has become synonymous to high tech,

00:05:52.033 --> 00:05:56.027
and the world is only getting
smarter and smarter day by day.

00:05:56.027 --> 00:06:00.043
But why can't smart be something
that's simple and yet effective?

00:06:00.043 --> 00:06:04.385
All we need is a little bit of empathy
and some curiosity,

00:06:04.385 --> 00:06:06.707
to go out there, observe.

00:06:06.707 --> 00:06:08.588
But let's not stop at that.

00:06:08.588 --> 00:06:12.164
Let's find these complex problems.
Don't be scared of them.

00:06:12.164 --> 00:06:15.832
Break them, boil them down
into much smaller problems,

00:06:15.832 --> 00:06:18.317
and then find simple solutions for them.

00:06:18.317 --> 00:06:21.266
Test these solutions, fail if needed,

00:06:21.266 --> 00:06:24.331
but with newer insights to make it better.

00:06:24.331 --> 00:06:28.672
Imagine what we all could do
if we all came up with simple solutions.

00:06:28.672 --> 00:06:32.504
What would the world be like
if we combined all our simple solutions?

00:06:32.504 --> 00:06:35.777
Let's make a smarter world,
but with simplicity.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:35.777 --> 00:06:37.496
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:37.496 --> 00:06:44.023
(Applause)