UR Siddharth's product designs make life-saving machines more efficient

“I have a very short attention span and I get distracted very easily, but when it comes to working on something creative, I put in all my focus, energy and effort,” says Siddharth, experience designer at Philips Healthcare in Bengaluru.

With focus and expert guidance from his well wishers, he spent four years preparing for the entrance exam to the National Institute of Design (NID). When he did not make it through the final leg of the entrance exam at NID, Andhra Pradesh, he was crestfallen. Not one to give up he applied to NID, Kurukshetra, Haryana and secured an all-India 1st rank.

“Studying in NID has been life-changing for me and I have gained immense experience and knowledge from my mentors, fellow students and the environment around me,” says Siddharth.

Pradyumna Vyas, senior advisor CII and former director of NID Ahmedabad, says, “Siddharth is blessed with a tremendous creative ability coupled with immense convincing power. His confidence, dynamism along with all the international recognition he has amassed will pave the way to a very bright career in design.”

At NID, Siddharth worked on several innovative projects, some of which have been validated by 85 International Design awards such as the Lexus Design Award, IDA Awards, Core 77 Design awards, Taiwan International Student Design Competition, European Product Design Award, Red Dot Award, to name a few.

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But the high point was winning the prestigious iF design award twice for his products ‘Survive’ and ‘Enable’. Survive is the first device of its kind to completely automate gastric irrigation—the process of cleaning out the contents of the stomach, one of the most routine means of eliminating poisons from the stomach­—which can be used in the event of a person consuming poison in a remote area where no immediate treatment is available closeby.

Survive can carry out gastric irrigation in just 2 to 5 minutes, compared to a conventional process taking up to 45 minutes, thus saving precious time. The device can be used in ambulances, hospitals, and in scenarios where no emergency medical personnel are at hand.

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Project Enable involved redesigning the user experience of a heart-lung machine to enhance and increase the efficiency of the procedure. After spending five days at Fortis Hospital, Mohali, closely observing several open heart emergency surgeries, Siddharth completely designed new control panels to support the perfusionist— the person operating the heart-lung machine, to manage normal blood flow, body temperature, and other respiratory functions—to aid in saving lives during emergencies. Through his design he addressed problems and critical issues that exist in the UI/UX of a heart-lung machine, thereby increasing the time of treatment, where every second is crucial in saving a patient’s life.

At 24, Siddharth has four patents pending and two designs registered by the IPR cell. “I am passionate about designing for social impact and designing for health care. I believe design is a mental state in which you strive to provide purpose-driven solutions. So I believe I can create an impact and I can create change with design,” says Siddharth.

“Siddharth has a rare ability to look for a real problem area and to put his heart and soul into solving it,” says Shaon Sengupta, head of Philips Design India, Philips Innovation Campus, Bengaluru. “At a very young age, he is inclined towards ‘philanthropy by design’ and has crafted his vocation around it. Today, the balance between his passion, talent and goals is all at the right place and poised to create wonders tomorrow.”