When Seng Ian Hao was nine years old and his sister Ing Le was seven, they witnessed an elderly woman fall at a hawker centre that changed the course of their young lives.
She was trying to pick up her walking stick, which she had leant against her table but had slid to the ground. As she bent over, she lost her balance and fell, hitting her head.
The incident galvanised them into action – they decided to invent a device to prevent others from having the same mishap.
Two weeks later, he built a clip from Lego bricks that could be attached to a walking stick so that the stick could be secured to any surface.
He and his sister called their “portable mobility aid holder” Qanemate, an acronym for Quality Ambulatory Novel Equipment.
The second Qanemate prototype was modified from their mother’s hair clip. Besides decorating it, Ing Le also experimented with different materials to give it a better grip.
Today, the Qanemate is in its 16th prototype. About 1,000 Qanemates have been given away to seniors in Singapore and countries as far as Finland.
Some 500 pieces were also sponsored by insurance firms AXA Singapore and MSIG Singapore.
But it has won them a bunch of awards here and overseas and they have set up a company, Qanemate. Last month, they also set up a non-profit arm, Qares.
Their aim is not to make money but to partner more companies and individuals to take their inventions to more seniors.
And to do so, they have roped in their school friends from St Joseph’s Institution International (SJII).
Ian Hao, who started a social innovation club at SJII, has had to deal with naysayers.
Brian said that Ian Hao has been mocked by his classmates but still pressed on. It is also rare for young people to be willing to visit eldercare centres on their own accord.
The siblings come from a family of doctors. Their grandfather, the late Dr Seng Kwang Meng, was an obstetrician and gynaecologist who took his grandchildren to volunteer help at nursing homes when they were four and two.
The Qanemate is patented in Singapore and it is pending patent status in several other countries. And it has been improved over the years.
For example, a personalised QR code can be installed in the Qanemate for dementia patients so that if they are lost, anyone who finds them can scan the QR code for the family’s contact details. The team also came up with QaneBrella – a walking stick cum umbrella.
The team is now also raising funds for the Singapore Cancer Society through the Give Asia website until the end of next month.
The Qanemate team is doing the fund-raising project under the Citi-YMCA Youth for Causes Programme, which promotes social entrepreneurship among youth. The cancer cause is close to their hearts as most of the boys in the team have relatives who suffered from cancer.
Their mentor at Citi Asia, Mr James Keady, said: “What separates them from everyone else is their drive, determination and passion.”
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Source: The Straits Times, 29 July 2019