During college life, many students work on projects which at some point they would like to take it to the next level. Most of them just get discussed among the four walls and fizzle out by the end of the college life. It is only a handful of them who actually take the effort and risk of bringing the dream project into life.

One such idea and project got discussed at the Govt. College of Engineering, Thrissur in 2014-2015. Don Paul, the co founder of Desintox Technologies shared the details of their startup journey.

“Easymover, a walking device for cerebral palsy affected children, was the first product and was given to Alpha Pain and Palliative, Thrissur. We were a team of 7 at that time & had done the project on behalf of ideator, innovation cell at GEC.”

All of the co founders parted ways towards the end of their engineering college life but parking a thought of starting a company at some point in future which can help specially abled people.

How much ever you plan, Destiny has its own plans.

“After completing our engineering, we went for different career paths and planned to start a related company in future. But at that time, one of our teammate met with a car accident & one side was paralysed (Glad to say that he is ok now). On seeing the problems & unavailability of equipments in handling and caring, we started the company”

It is always good to have some great company around you and that gives the confidence to work towards achieving your plans.

The idea to start the company was a collective one with discussions initiated by Sooraj C, Vishnu KS & Don Paul. The three had the discussions of starting company while during their last semester (2016). Vishnu was the lead in developing the easymover, their first product and was the one who faced the accident. They understood the need while he was hospitalized. It was during this time that Sooraj informed the others about the TBI/incubator which was being set up at GEC Thrissur at that time. They applied for their first incubation there and started the company.

“We coined the word Desintox from De’sintox /Detox in French. It means rehabilitation especially from drugs. It is true for Disability as well. The affected person won’t be able to get out of it even though they try hard. So we thought Desintox to be a considerable name for a company that tries to enable people and help them to be able/ease their life/rejuvenate them to the maximum possible extend.”

says Don about naming their company.

They are currently focusing on adding more features to the patient transfer device. Don explained the plans to add self navigation to this device and also autonomous mobility to electric wheelchairs.

“Let us focus on Patient Transfer Device for now. All the patient transfer devices available now are suited only for indoor usage and also wont be helpful for transferring to vehicles. Our new transfer device will be able to transfer user easily from/to bed, chair, floor, toilet and even cars. Also we will be adding self navigation facility that can be operated by patient itself soon. For wheelchairs, we are trying to provide autonomous mobility also so that the hands ie the only fully functional limbs of user will be free.”

Desintox has made an impact in the lives of around 75 people till now ,majority of them are based out of South India.

The current Desintox team is now made constitutes 9 members. This startup is bootstrapped and have got some grants from government as well.

Don is very excited about the future plans of Desintox.

“We are developing 2 products that will revolutionize the life. Will disclose the details in some later stages. as patenting process is being done now. Also we are trying to onboard distributors all over South India now. We are also trying scale and raise investment soon.”

Hoping to see some great add ons from team Desintox. It is never easy to start a company and it becomes really difficult to focus on a startup which has hardware / manufacturing of products. The amount of iteration and prototypes required to get it absolutely right will definitely be consuming lot of energy, funds and patience. But it is great to see a set of youngsters focusing and giving it all to work towards a special cause. It is indeed a detox for people who are impacted and can now look forward to be more independent.

“We enable (differently abled) people to lead a better, self sustainable, honorable life and reduce dependency on others.”

Desintox Tech

You can read more about Desintox here.

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This is part of the startup series is done in association with Thrissur Startups. An initiative to bring together the startup community in the cultural capital of Kerala, Thrissur.