Innovating for a safer world

Now, sanitizing or washing one’s hands and wearing masks will never get dated. It’s the new normal.

However, some young entrepreneurs realised that it was a necessity for everyone to get back to their routine and so they came up with ideas and designed machines towards that end. While some manufactured machines, others built websites and apps to aid the present situation.

AMIT GOMEZ and  D. SURENDER BABU: Zero-contact public property

Surender Babu and Amit Gomez created machines that could be rather helpful for people in public spaces. The first machine, named ‘Nexetra Disinfectant,’ comes with sensor-based sanitizing machine. The second machine the duo created is a UVC disinfection box. The duo hopes people can make use of Nexetra Disinfectant in especially public places such as malls, churches, temples mosques and offices.

Surender talked to us about what gave way to the idea of building these. “During the lockdown, I began wondering how our lives would change after the lockdown. People would have to use sanitizers for even the tiniest amount of exposure,” says Surender. “My enterprise partner Amit Gomez and I thought of a sensor-based sanitizing machine, which would not need any human contact for the machine to dispense the disinfectant.”

Nexetra Disinfectant comes with a touch-free dispenser that can hold about eight litres of liquid sanitizer and has a sensor on it. The UVC disinfection box  the second machine they created to help with the present scenario scans viruses that are on one’s watch, laptop, jewellery, money and other items one may carry when outdoors. While Surender and Amit spent a whole day in research, they took only another in creating these machines.

The timelines of creation, however, seem irrelevant to the entrepreneurs as compared to the efforts that have gone in to building it. As Amit says, “We worked hard to get these machines done. The major challenge we faced was the difficulty in procuring all the parts of the machine. However, we managed to do that rightly.”

The duo’s hard work seems to be paying off too, for they have been supplying these machines to a few corporate offices and worship places in and around the city. “We hope these machines will help the society to get back to living their normal lives again,” adds Amit.

TAVISHI JAIN and TANISHA JAIN: Safety essentials

Tavishi and Tanisha Jain are sisters who are pursuing their graduation in the UK. However, the duo came back to India in March just before the government declared the nation-wide lockdown. Unlike Surender and Amit, who developed machines, these entrepreneur sisters thought the situation around them was such that people needed help in procuring safety essentials to fight the disease.

That is when they decided to create digital outlets especially using social media handles to help people buy COVID-19 essentials, such as masks, gloves, PPE-kits, sanitizers and temperature guns and machines.

Speaking about the handle that provides people with COVID essentials Tavishi says, “Sometime amidst the lockdown, my sister and I decided to create an Instagram handle named Care-O-Safe. The idea was to use the handle like any other handle on the platform for shopping. Ours would provide people with all the essentials they would need when stepping outdoors.”

In essence, the entrepreneur sisters procure from their vendors and suppliers the essentials their customers request for on the social media handle. “Customers approach us through messages or calls, and based on their orders, we get the essentials from the suppliers,” Tavishi elaborates.

However, the sisters look at this enterprise as an ad-hoc arrangement for now. “We have to get back to our college during the month of September,” Tavishi adds. “If the situation continues to remain as it is now, though, we would love to continue with the business.”

PREKSHA  SINGHVEE and NAVIKA LOHIA: Quality in one’s reach

Another set of friends, named Presksha Sighvee and Navika Lohia, had met each other at the University of British Colombia in Canada. The duo had to return home to India in March as their parents started to worry about them out there with the pandemic in full swing.

However, that didn’t stop the two friends from thinking about how to keep their community safe.

So they devised to create a website called ‘Simplee Safe Sisters’, catering to safety essentials such as hand cleansing wipes and sprays, facial mists and soothing wipes and rubs for the fur babies, which they claim are not only safe and natural but also meet the CDC guidelines.

Preksha shares with us an insight about what led the friends to get on this enterprise. “We want people to choose from the best, so we came up with stocking up about 100 good quality safety essentials,” she says.

“One can find everything related to COVID-19 safety in the website.” Like it is for anyone starting a new enterprise, the two friends also faced challenges. However, the duo preferred to focus on their motives towards delivering the best for people, which even helped them move forward with their business plans.

“People started to know about our website  and placed orders accordingly, and there has been a good response. We hope that our site helps people to get good quality product,” she adds.

With entrepreneurs catering to the needs of their community, the new normal lying ahead may look positive.