“The best projects have a pivot. While the initial thought of pivoting was very stressful, the process of coming to terms with it felt freeing because we didn’t have to hold on tightly to our idea anymore. By embracing change and feeling emboldened to seek different perspectives, we developed an idea that is truly needed and desired by our target community.”
Zoe Lalji, Ruba Siddiqi, Lina Jubreel, 2024
Zoe Lalji, Ruba Siddiqi, Lina Jubreel
Introducing VALOR, a medical technology company providing quadriplegic patients with autonomy in the form of novel experiences and immersive activities that they are unable to engage in physically.
About VALOR
50 million people worldwide live with degenerative diseases, including ALS, that limit their ability to interact with their surroundings and others. These constraints produce a decreased quality of life and a negative outlook on patients’ illness. We see Virtual Reality (VR) as a vessel through which patients can have novel experiences that they otherwise are no longer able to. Often patients lose much of their identities when they are unable to do the things that they love. These can be returned to them to some degree by immersive VR experiences, giving patients a renewed sense of identity.
Furthermore, ALS patients lose their ability to speak and use body language to signal a need or express their thoughts and emotions. Currently, the primary solution for this is communication through an “eye gaze” device which is a technology that utilizes eye tracking to control a text to speech software. However, many ALS patients have claimed that they prefer not to use them due to frustration that arises. With the world of VR comes enhanced sensors for ocular movement which could greatly improve communication for ALS patients and lessen their feeling of isolation from the world around them.
We are developing a VR application that allows quadriplegics a wide range of novel experiences that they can no longer have due to their disability. With this purpose, we will design this VR application with an eye gaze integrated display to facilitate complete independent immersion.
