Dressed in a blue-blazer with a carbon-framed specs 17-years old Zain Samdani was speaking to guests, entrepreneurs, and businessmen at Aspiring Entrepreneur Summit-2018-Riyadh. The youngest scientist was fluently presenting his exoskeleton invention which helps millions of people with motor disabilities. CEO of Google, Sunder Pichai tweeted Zain’s invention during his visit to Google Science Fair.
Zain Samdani who is hardly 17-years old completing his 12th grade in Yasmin International School – Riyadh – Saudi Arabia, became interested in robotics at a very young age through YouTube videos on Robotics. He started creating motor devices using mere cardboard and plastic items. Looking at his unparalleled ability to transform his ideas into a kinetic invention, his father Zubair Samdani – Projects Manager of a Logistics Company in Riyadh – funded his son’s dream.
“I actually had this idea, my main inspiration to do all of this was actually for my mom,” said Zain Samdani.
Seeing my mom work hard and the fact that she didn’t have time for herself, that inspired me to create robots that would lessen her burden,” he added. He started to wonder how he could contribute to help the 200 million people living with disabilities worldwide. Majority of these people suffer from lost motor faculties, however some rehabilitation centers offer recovery therapies through robotic exoskeletons, which are often heavy, expensive and focused on helping patients with regular exercise. Zain thought in thought, if a robotic exoskeleton could help a patient’s brain to develop new avenues and help them completely recover or at least improve their motor skills. Zain designed a robotic exoskeleton hand that mimics the movement of a sensor hand in parallel. During the course of testing he observed his own motor skills in the learning hand appeared to be improved.
“I do it single-handedly with my parents support. My Dad supported me financially and my mom morally. Whenever I caught up in the problem, she was the one who found solution to it,” said Zain when asked if he designed, programmed, and tested single-handedly.
Zain Samdani
His design is unique with its lightweight feature and is completely customizable to the wearer’s hands. Zain believes his “ExoHeal” device can help physically disabled patients around the world overcome the challenge of their lives more easily.
Zain was selected to represent Saudi Arabia among the top 16 Global Finalists in the Google Science Fair 2016. He flaunts his achievement of getting his picture tweeted by CEO of Google Sunder Pichai during the fair.
“I have represented Saudi Arabia in Mumbai, and US as well in Google Science Fair,” he enthused.
Zain is the only one representative from Saudi Arabia and among 16 global finalists, who competed at the sixth Google Science Fair held in California.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the development of NEOM city which will probably open new avenues for the world-class robotic experts to contribute their inventions. Zain explained that he and his father are looking into it in the future but nothing concrete has been finalized yet.
His invention “ExoHeal” has attracted a lot of investors during the Aspiring Entrepreneur Summit-2018 owing to the uniqueness of the product of being lightweight, customizable and highly cost-effective.
Zain does not spend all his time in the laboratory. He also has plenty of hobbies. Zain said, “I do a lot of stuff like poetry, photography, and I have my own Youtube Channel (ZainNemesis)”. “I make videos on robotics to help more kids take interest in the subject,” he added.
Zain dreams to continue with his endeavor in robotics to bring smiles on the faces of millions of deprived people around the globe.
