Jugaad innovation at work for India: A baby incubator made of cardboard

An Indian student in London has developed a cardboard baby incubator that could help save millions of lives in countries like India.Malav Sanghavi, studying for his Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) Master's dual degree course at Imperial College London and Royal College of Art, won third prize for his BabyLifeBox in a start-up competition held at St. James' Palace in London.

“It's particularly motivating as a social enterprise to be recognised in this way. We are looking for initial seed funding so that we can expand our team, bring more experts on board and develop minimal viable prototypes and start user testing and clinical trials by mid-next year,” Sanghavi said following the Pitch@ Palace event hosted by Prince Andrew - the Duke of York, in November.Pitch@Palace aims to support UK entrepreneurs by connecting them with potential supporters and investors and had received nearly 200 entries this year.The winning entry involved a 3D printed knitwear start-up.“BabyLifeBox is a low cost baby incubator that provides basic neonatal care at grassroots level. India has highest number of babies dying within the first 24 hours of their birth in the world, more than 300,000 a year. According to our initial research, we found that India's healthcare service has facilities to deal with a standard birth at sub-centres, primary health centres and community health centres but it lacks infrastructure for neonatal care of premature and underweight infants,” explained Sanghavi, a graduate from the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad.The idea for the innovation was born when his cousin's daughter had to be kept alive in an incubator a few years ago.“This was crucial for her survival and we were lucky to have these facilities as we were from developed city of India. This got me thinking what happens to the infants who need intimidate care after birth in a remote village somewhere in India. I started looking into some facts and found, according to WHO, 99 per cent newborn deaths occur in middle and low income countries,” he said.Sanghavi built his prototype on a small grant of just £500 from Imperial College London's Hackspace programme but is now looking to roll it out on a mass scale through collaborations with organisations like WHO, UNICEF, the Red Cross and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.