Interview - Ajit Narayan, Founder and MD of Invention Labs

Ajit Narayan, Founder and MD of Invention Labs. He studied Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras and worked in US for about 4 years, then after he came back to India and started Invention Labs in 2007.Invention Lab has come up with an innovative product called Avaz. Avaz is a device meant for people with speaking disabilities like cerebral palsy, autism, mental retardation and aphasia .These differently abled people find it difficult to communicate with words and Avaz provided a platform in which they are able to convey their ideas through artificial voice .This technology is not revolutionary, it had been around for years now but the cost of this device is several thousand dollars and was beyond reach of most people in India. Scientists at Invention lab came up with the brilliant idea of using cell phones and tablets to achieve the same functionality. This way the purpose of communicating through artificial voice was achieved at a fraction of the cost .Our focus was to leverage this technology through economies of scale and our objective was to make AVAZ accessible to ordinary Indians in local languages.

 1. Can you please introduce yourself?

My name is Ajit narayan, founder and managing director of invention labs, I am an Alumni of IIT Madras, I studied electrical engineering there did my Bachelor's and master's, after I finished studying at IIT i worked in the US for about four years, and then i came back to India and i started Invention labs.

2. How long have you been in business?

I started invention labs in 2007 so it's about 4 and half years now. i build the business of making  assistance technology for people with disability since 2008 its been about 4 years now.

3. Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?

it's been a desire for a long time for me to be an entrepreneur, in fact when i was in college there were survival of us to work quite keen  to be entrepreneur amongst my batch mate and Infact, I am quite happy to say that most of those people are now an entrepreneur. I went to the US with the very specific aim of earning money and getting experience in order to start my own company here in India. So it was always off plan. I am the only founder of invention lab we do have a very dedicate team in invention labs-.

4. Can you describe your TECHNOLOGY and the consumer needs it serves? How is it superior to other technologies present now? 

My company makes a product called Avaz. Avaz is a device, which is meant for people with disability to speak. So people who have disability like cerebral palsy, autism, mental retardation, and     aphasia these peoples are cant able to speak and Avaz provides artificial voice for them. There have been devices like this available all over the world for many years but first device is abroad cost several thousands of dollars and there was simply on a portable for anyone here in India. So what we did was to some of the system where we used latest technology which is used in cell phones in the tablet market and we tried to see whether that can be used to achieve the same functionality. That is the primary way in which people able to bring the cost of the device to something which affordable in India. We were able to also leverage up on the economies of scale because even though our devices certainly need and the rest by using technology which is used in all the mobile devices in order to achieve mobile devices. AVAZ is feasible with Indian languages also.

 5. When did you start your company and where do you see it in five years?

2007 we started and 2008 we started working on Avaz. I think this particular place is going to be incredible fast way the space of using tablets, telephones for disability and a very significant question is world population is disabled and looking for solution to overcome the disabilities through the use of technology. I think invention of these setup is very nice antis point in order to take advantage of effect because we have daily vibrant equal system of people working in the disability sector here in India and we have a global market for solution to built here. I think intentional lab being the number one player in the sector of using technology for the people in disabilities is the next 5 years.

6. How did you come up with your business idea?

The idea for Avaz came specifically from the society of India here in Chennai called vidya sagar.  In 2008 they had a explained me the  needs of people with disability with respect to communication they had also gave me an orientation about what might be of feasible product think about so the idea came from them. There partnered with us really in order to work iteratively come up with something effective.

7. Did you receive any financial support? How did you fund the business?

We received financial support from Government of India to develop avaz. We had applied for grant called TEPT grant on the DSIR for the initial development of some parts of avaz after that we generated money internally. We have funded completely by ourselves. We don’t have any investors as of now that’s how we developed avaz. I forgot to mention here not only have the government recognized the work we done by giving us the grant to develop avaz, further but they also recognized the impact of avaz and we received number of awards from various people and that regards for example in 2010 the president of India give us the national award for the employment of people with disability which is the highest award in India work in these place and last year  we were the recipient of MIT technology of views we got TR 35 awards it is the prestige’s award that MIT gives out 

 8. What advice do you have for young people who want to be entrepreneurs?

My advice to young people is don’t compromise on high quality I think in India we are only now starting to discover what technology of entrepreneur means and what engineer can to for a country and I think we are in a position right now where we have a chance to define the way in which engineering in India has perceived. I think whatever else they have to compromise on one thing that they should not compromise on the quality of their products .making anything at all for India they should work with same high standard as if they were making it for the richest countries in the World.

9. Cost of your product

Avaz costs about 30 k. It costs around 1.5 lakhs in other countries.