Hyderabad: Toys have always been about entertaining infants and children. From keeping them engaged to providing them with a companion, toys have been a source of entertainment for kids.
However, three Warangal-based innovators are changing the role of toys in a child’s life. Their innovative idea is making children aware of good touch, bad touch and how to deal with harassment.
Started under the brand name Samskar Electronics, Samskar Toys was founded by three innovators – Yakara Ganesh, Gundu Bharadwaja and Dr MK Kaushik.
While Ganesh, who is 12th pass serial innovator with 25 innovations to his credit, Bharadwaja is a third-year student at Vaagdevi Engineering College and Kaushik is CEO of Vaagdevi Incubation and Business Accelerator (VIBA).
These three young innovators have developed a soft toy that has electronic sensors that vibrate and talk when touched by the children.
“The toy is fitted with sensors that when touched upon educates the children on whether the said touch is good touch or a bad touch by making noise. It talks both in English and Telugu and makes a sound when anyone touches private parts. While theoretically children are taught this concept not many can grasp the issue. We thought why not develop a product that provides a visual element to this concept and that is how this toy was born,” says Kaushik, who has helped Ganesh and Bharadwaja through VIBA in providing technical and market knowledge.
This toy, according to Ganesh, is well-suited to provide education to children in the age group of 3-12 years and they are already getting orders from government schools, private educational institutions, the Telangana government, and also from international markets like Poland.
“We are getting support from Telangana State Innovation Cell (TSIC) for marketing our product. We have spoken to officials from the government who assured us that they will buy these toys to educate children in schools. We are planning to sell the toy on an e-commerce platform as well,” says Ganesh.
Other than the toy, the three innovators have also developed a humanoid robot that can be placed in schools and public places to provide education and awareness on the same concept. The robot is getting funding from the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at IIIT-Hyderabad and the prototyping is being done at T-Works.
“The robot also does the same work as the toy but it is just a bigger version and can help in spreading awareness among the community and not just children,” adds Kaushik.
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