Design for Human Agency | Rishi Krishna Iyer S | TEDxRathinam Technical Campus

After losing his right hand in 2018, Rishi Krishna Iyer S looked for a prosthetic arm he could actually use and found imported options costly and poorly suited to local conditions, while cheaper ones offered little function. He co-founded Symbionic with Niranjankumar Raghupathi to build the Krea Adaptive, a modular upper limb system designed and assembled in India. The talk, given at TEDxRathinam Technical Campus, looks at how products and systems can expand or restrict human agency and why listening to users and offering meaningful choices should guide design. The speaker describes the system's quick-disconnect wrist, 360-degree rotatable wrist and four attachments for activities such as riding, eating, training and working. He notes that people across India use it, funded through corporate CSR, foundations or personal payment.

• Personal experience of losing a hand and searching for a prosthetic arm
• Symbionic and the modular Krea Adaptive upper limb system
• Designing prosthetics for Indian conditions and users' needs
• Designing for human agency and meaningful choice

What does it mean to design for someone’s right to choose? Drawing on his experience of losing his right hand and building Symbionic, Rishi Krishna explores how products and systems can expand or restrict human agency. Through lessons from designing prosthetics, he shares why listening to people, offering meaningful choices, and understanding what matters to them should guide what we build. About In 2018 I lost my right hand. Then I went looking for a prosthetic arm. The imported ones cost more than a car and were built for conditions that do not exist here. The cheap ones did nothing. I had money, a network, and time, and I still could not find an arm I would actually wear. Most people in India who lose a hand have none of those three things. I co-founded Symbionic that year with Niranjankumar Raghupathi. We build the Krea Adaptive: a modular upper limb system with a quick-disconnect wrist, a 360-degree rotatable wrist, and four attachments covering the things people actually want back. Riding. Eating. Training. Working. Designed and assembled in India, for Indian conditions. People are using it across India. Some funded by corporate CSR, some by foundations, some who paid for it themselves. If you run CSR or a foundation funding disability or livelihood work in India message me here. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx