Prashant Gade - A True engineer, making lives better

Knowledge gained is truly helpful when used for the betterment of the society. We all read many books, get top scores in our exams, but how many of us dedicate our academic achievements for the ones who need our expertise and help? Making our own life luxurious is what most of us think is a real success, but mind you this is just a self-care. And nobody really cares about it. Does scoring good marks in academics is only criteria for people to admire you? No, and a young boy from Madhya Pradesh proved it.

Prashant Gade of Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh was good in his studies and was pursuing his electrical engineering degree. Though he was good in his academics, he also had innovative inclination and would loved to discuss his ideas with his professor. But Professor never encouraged him and always try to pursue him to think about grades only. This disappointing experience of grade race and rote-learning forced Prashant to give up his studies and he dropped out of college in the final year to work of real life learning.

As told by Prashant, while searching for a job he came across a post on robotics course on Facebook. The moment I saw that I thought as if this is posted for me only and my dreams got a platform. Then I enrolled myself for the 6-month FAB training course in Pune. While pursuing this course he read about Nicolas Huchet, a Bionico hand-maker, who lost his hand in an accident, and thus made bionic arm for himself. Prashant got so much inspired by Nicolas’s story that he began creating a prototype. But one day he came across a seven-year-old girl who was born without arms. He thought of gifting prosthetic arms to her, but when he came to know that approximately Rs 24 lakh will be needed for two arms. Also as she is a child she will have to get those changed every two years. Prashant thought that how one can afford such kind of expenditure?

From here onwards he started creating an affordable and more effective alternative to it. Side by side he researched and was surprised to know that more than 50,000 people in India lose their arms and more than 85 percent of them live miserable life as they can’t afford the heavy expenditure. He at a young age of 23 started creating a low-cost semi-bionic arm. But this path was not an easy ride for him. His parents were not convinced with his idea, as he left a chance to live a comfortable life by doing engineering. His social work angle didn’t go well with his close ones. His father got him enrolled for some other course. But Prashant knew what he want to achieve and he started working towards it. Once he got first grant from a big company who liked his idea, he once again left the course in between to fulfil his dreams.

Although the journey was too harsh when he started, but through various online campaigns and videos he finally got people who liked his idea and helped him. With the help of like-minded people and those who helped him with finances and equipment, Prashant invented Inali Arms, priced at Rs 50,000 only!

Till now Prashant has designed more than 800 arms. The arm is durable for more than three years, and can pick up 10 kg of weight at a time. We salute Prashant and hope more and more people in India come up with such innovative and society worth idea! Skill oriented education is today’s need.