Usage of the iGrip Hand prosthesis in India

From September till November a master student, India Hoekman, from the TU Delft went to SSN College of Engineering in Chennai to work together with a research team on a study on the usage of the Hundred Dollar Hand or the iGrip hand prosthesis in Chennai, India. The iGrip is a hand prosthetic designed by Dr. Ir. Gerwin Smit and is now distributed by Vispala in India. The research team consists of Dr. Ir. Gerwin Smit, Dr. Ir. Mohamed Irfan Refai, Dr. Kavitha A., Dr. Nithya, R., two students of SSN College of Engineering and one MSc student of the TU Delft.  

The internship was conducted at the Biomedical Engineering department on campus of SSN College of Engineering. As the Biomedical Engineering department is a department with around 60 students a year, you get mostly very personal guidance from the supervisors and you get to meet a lot of different researchers, PhD students and other staff personally. The internship focused on the iGrip prosthetic hand, which is made in India and is being sold and distributed all over the country. The aim of the internship was to set up a research study about the usage of the prosthetic hand and gather user feedback. During the internship, I initiated the preliminary stages of our research, and we are currently still working on it. In the process, I picked up tons of insights from both the department and doing research.  

This internship turned out to be a fantastic chance to learn more about India (and about the meaning of my name), soak up a different culture, and dig deeper into the world of Biomedical Engineering. But the real eye-opener? Getting to know India beyond textbooks. India has different music, different food, and of course, a different language. It took some time to get used to, and I learned a lot from myself. But at the end of the three months, I had made some great friends, got to see India from such a different perspective, and it got a special place in my heart.