A Startup That's Opening Doors--Literally--For Wheelchair Users

A Startup That's Opening Doors--Literally--For Wheelchair Users

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About six months ago, Sam Lew, an undergraduate at Brigham Young University, was out and about on campus when a woman in a wheelchair asked him to help open a door. That got him thinking about how difficult daily life must be for any student with similar disabilities.

BYU Photo

Lew, however, was in a position to do something about it. A member of an undergraduate team in the University’s Crocker Innovation Fellowship, a year-long interdisciplinary program aimed at developing collaboration, innovation and entrepreneurship skills, he discussed his thoughts with his five colleagues. After some research, they decided to focus their efforts on inventing a better way for wheelchair users to go through entrance ways and forming a company named Piero to do that. The ultimate goal, says fellow co-founder Connor McLeod, is “to make the world more accessible to people with physical disabilities.”

The startup just won $10,000 in the CommonBond Social Impact Award competition, run by CommonBond, a financial technology company that helps students refinance and borrow educational loans, in partnership with Pencils of Promise.

The team includes six students, each from a different discipline. Lew, for example, is studying industrial design, while McLeod is in computer science. “Our common thread is our interest in entrepreneurship and creating a social impact,” says Lew.

At first, however, they didn’t know exactly how to focus their energies. Then, after Lew discussed his experience, the team had a lengthy, in-depth conversation with the wheelchair user Lew had met. She shared what daily life was like and, says Lew, “We were able to pull out insights that gave us our idea.”

What they developed is a device you  attach to the motor on an automatic door that detects blue tooth signals from a user’s phone. It’s designed to be retrofitted onto existing door openers. To make that happen, the team needs to get a building’s blue tooth ID from its facilities manager (or users can add an ID via the company’s web site). Then an appropriately retrofitted door will open when it recognizes that signal. Ultimately, if a critical mass of doors are revamped to include the device, it potentially could become an industry standard, according to McLeod. The team just launched a pilot to test the product in a local university.

Targeting wheelchair users in higher education is just the first step. Eventually, the plan is to expand into other products and such markets as bank, hospital and government buildings. “We’re trying to increase the independence and feeling of empowerment people have to get around every day,” says McLeod.

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July 30, 2017 at 01:34PM