The fraction of the world population plagued by motor impairments is increasing year-on-year. Neuromuscular and cerebrovascular disorders, age-related diseases and accidents are amongst the primary causes for motor disabilities, with symptoms ranging from muscular weakness to distractive involuntary movements (e.g. tremor) and inhibited movements (e.g. bradykinesia and paralysis). Most of these motor impairments have very few treatment alternatives other than symptomatic management. With increasing longevity and higher median population age, developed countries have now put in place many systemic reforms to improve facilities and infrastructure for the disabled population. Access to facilities and infrastructure such as financial assistance, primaryto-tertiary care centres, assisted living facilities, care workers, and the latest in rehabilitation and assistive technologies are now becoming commonplace for residents of these countries. These facilities and infrastructure are fundamental to every individual's right to equality, equal opportunities, and dignity in life. Unfortunately, in India, where most of rural society still believes a person's disability to be punishment for sins in a past life, the challenges are even more fundamental. In developing countries, the disabled experience an unfair fight, right from countering society's stigma, to having to fight for equal education and employment. There is a critical need for a paradigm shift in how the disabled are treated - right from inculcating empathy in the country's abled population, to putting in place all infrastructure and facilities for them to thrive. The proposed ideation workshop for the collaborative development of affordable and accessible devices for rehabilitation and assistance aims to address one such prevailing challenge.

For someone battling motor impairment, the success of this initiative resulting in technology capable of giving back partial or full function would be life-changing. According to the Census of India 2011 (updated 2016), India records 2.21% of its population as being disabled (all disabilities) as compared to approximately 12% and 9% in the USA and UK, respectively. 20% of this disabled population is estimated to suffer from a movement disability, with another 8% suffering multiple disabilities. Experts, however, consider the real number to be much higher and attribute this number to the definition of disabled used for the survey and the country's archaic data collection and analysis methodologies. However, it is essential to view these numbers with the perspective of India's population being 4 and 20 times that of the US and UK, respectively. Additionally, India has a median age of just 27.9 years as compared to US’s 38.1 and UK’s 40.5 years, while having a per capita GDP (normalised to PPP) that is less than 1/8th and 1/6th that of the US and UK, respectively.

This already low per capita GDP again masks the prevalent reality of income disparity as more than 70% of the population owns less than 10% of the country's wealth and the top 1% owning 73% of it. According to the World Bank, in 2017, 60% of India earned less than GBP 2.5 per day. Finally, if education, economic self-reliance, and access to facilities can be considered metrics for an individual's self-empowerment and inclusion: 69% of the disabled community reside in rural areas, 45% are illiterate with only 26% having more than primary schooling, 49.8% are dependents, and 19.7% are students. These numbers are bound to increase dramatically as India’s median population age is projected to increase by ten years over the next two decades.

Compounding the statistics of the existing population with a motor disability is the alarming rate at which disability is increasing on a year-on-year basis. While some sources for motor impairment, like accidents or genetic conditions, are unprecedented and inevitable, in a majority of cases, a level of preparedness has been shown to limit the extent of irreversible damage. Stroke is one such cerebrovascular disease affecting over 15 million people worldwide every year. 85% of the deaths from stroke worldwide are recorded in low- and medium-income countries.

It is estimated to affect over 1.8 million people in India and be the cause of over 950,000 deaths/year by 2020. About 40-45% of this population will be severely affected, and over 12% of this population is less than 40 years of age. In the case of stroke, prompt medical and therapeutic intervention has shown to improve the outcome dramatically. In stroke rehabilitation, the sensorimotor experience from the prompt administration of intensive and continuous therapeutic exercise has shown to influence recovery greatly. This intervention, however, is near impossible to achieve when the entire country has about 35 stroke units, primarily in private sector hospitals in metropolitan cities, such that majority of the urban population fails to receive the necessary care. Only an estimated 2-3% of the population has access to rehabilitation facilities. As of 2011, only 32,000 physical therapists and 3,000 occupational therapists are registered to cater to over 5 million people with movement disabilities. State-of-the-art robotic rehabilitation technologies that are now becoming the standard in hospitals and care centres in the developed world are mere marketing and money-spinning additions in few super-speciality hospitals in metropolitan cities. The current standard of care for rehabilitation is a typical in-hospital setting where patients undergo therapy for a few hours every day with professional therapists and spend most of their waking hours inactive and alone in their bed. A single 60-90 minute robotic therapy session in India costs over GBP 60, which is equivalent to the 24 days household income (GBP 2.5/day) for over 60% of the population. This scenario highlights the need for safe, inexpensive, engaging, standalone rehabilitation devices that allows for patients to undergo therapy without the need for supervision or intervention from professional therapists. The state-of-the-art assistive devices available in the country are still wheelchairs, braces and crutches that do not conform to the latest standards. Governmental aid equivalent to GBP 110 and GBP 275 is available under the ADIP scheme for the purchase of non-motorised and motorised wheelchairs, but affording state-of-the-art assistive technologies like the ReWalk exoskeletons that on average cost GBP 75,000-155,000 will be a pipe-dream for most. This disparity further highlights the need for frugal innovation and the indigenous development of low-cost assistive and rehabilitation devices that imbibe the state-ofthe-art from research and industry.