IIT-M innovation: Country’s lightest wheelchair just 9 kg
Thryv Mobility will manufacture the wheelchairs locally to global benchmarks, ensuring each chair is truly be spoke and affordable to users in India and emerging markets
IIT Madras unveils the ‘YD One — India’s lightest active wheelchair’
CHENNAI: The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) on Wednesday unveiled the first indigenously built ‘YD One — India’s lightest active wheelchair’.
A statement from the institute said, “Fully customised to individual users, it weighs just 9 kg and promises world-class mobility with unmatched strength, efficiency, and ease of handling. The device has been co-developed by the institute’s R2D2 Lab and Thryv Mobility, a startup incubated at IIT Madras,” the institute said.
Designed using aerospace-grade materials, YD One eliminates the constraints of bulky hospital-style wheelchairs. It promises superior mobility, dignity, and independence — attributes earlier seen only in expensive import models, a release from IIT-M said.
Thryv Mobility will manufacture the wheelchairs locally to global benchmarks, ensuring each chair is truly bespoke and affordable to users in India and emerging markets, it added.
Speaking at the event, Surgeon Vice-Admiral Anupam Kapur, Nau Sena Medal, Director General Hospital Services (Armed Forces), said, “Innovation is not meant to stay within the walls of laboratories. It must touch lives,” Surgeon Vice-Admiral Kapur also noted that nearly 15% of the global population — between 1.3 and 1.9 billion people — live with some form of disability, a number projected to rise to 2.5 billion by 2058.
“With innovations like these, India is poised to lead in building an inclusive, accessible future, “ he said.
IIT-M director V Kamakoti said, “An inclusive society is essential for national prosperity. Technology must be the cornerstone of that inclusivity.”
