Top 5 Place for Gavin Jones’ Pitch of reScribe at Googlefest, Zurich

A UCT invention, “Hand Exoskeleton” was placed in the top five pitches at the recent international Googlefest Zurich pitching competition.  In fact, three of the top five positions were taken by The Swiss SA Business Development Programme entrepreneurs. This project was showcased by Gavin Jones who aptly branded the device reScribe.  Gavin, a TIA-CHUMA intern spent time at RCIPS during his training.

reScribe is a low cost stroke rehabilitation device which was developed by Mr Yasheen Brijlal, a UCT student from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Dr Lester John and Dr Sudesh Siravasu (both Department of Human Biology). It aids handwriting rehabilitation of stroke patients.  A functioning prototype capable of providing a rehabilitative mode of operation to prove this concept has already been built.  It features five actuated degrees-of-freedom on the thumb, index and middle fingers that are needed for a tripod handwriting grip.  It fits over the wearer’s hand and guides the movement as they trace an image on a computer tablet with a stylus, enabling coordination to be re-learnt.

It is anticipated that this exposure would increase the awareness of this device in the market and at the same time attracting further funding needed to fine tune the device.  Gavin will be looking for Swiss collaborators to work on taking this device to market.