Courtesy of Sahgal Household
When Angad Sehgal was born with Down syndrome 23 years in the past, docs informed his dad and mom that he would by no means be capable of stroll or speak. Such assumptions vastly underestimate the skills of individuals with Down syndrome. Folks with this genetic situation are congressional lobbyists, triathletes, actors, and extra. Sahgal is a university pupil and an entrepreneur herself: together with her father, Amit Sahgal, she created an app known as Let Me Do It, a phrase she repeated usually as a toddler. “It is an app that empowers folks with disabilities to have a voice and stay with independence,” he explains.
The Let Me Do It app employs pictures and textual content to information customers by means of actions of every day residing. Duties like “make breakfast” and “go to work” are damaged down into step-by-step selections that customers navigate by means of visible or textual content prompts, with choices to ask assist from caregivers or different help folks.
“I can do it. You are able to do it,” Sahgal mentioned of his invention, which caught the eye of the Techstars International Startup Community earlier this yr. The enterprise incubator offered Sahgal and his father with three months of intensive mentoring help, together with workplace house above the Ponce Metropolis Market. A workspace on the ground. The startup’s help will allow them to refine the app with beta testers. Sahgal hopes to finally get Let Me Do It into the fingers of individuals with disabilities worldwide.
Sahgal was impressed to create the app after a lifetime of underestimation. Typically, caregivers and others make selections for folks with Down syndrome and different disabilities, robbing them of their autonomy and dignity. Sahgal remembers how excited he was to stroll to high school by himself as a second grader. However one other pupil’s mother or father—unbeknownst to Sahgal’s dad and mom watching close by—complains to the principal {that a} disabled baby is crossing the road with no chaperone. “I simply needed to go to my faculty independently,” says Sahgal.
Sahgal has an extended historical past of defying previous expectations. She is presently learning artwork at Georgia State College, by means of the Inclusive Digital Expression and Literacy (IDEL) program for college students with mental disabilities. GSU’s Most important Road Entrepreneurs Seed Fund funded the preliminary improvement of its Let Me Do It app. Sahgal additionally pours her efforts into advocacy: She is a youth ambassador for Georgia’s Youth Voice, a Youth Selection heart that helps folks with disabilities make selections about each facet of their lives.
Sahgal lives life on his personal phrases. He has a black belt in karate and speaks English, Hindi and Punjabi. He performs soccer on the YMCA and enjoys hanging out together with his brother, watching sports activities and flicks Madagascar. Each morning, she dances to Bollywood music as she will get prepared for her GSU courses.
Requested what she needed to say to the docs who informed her dad and mom she would by no means stroll or speak, Sahgal replied firmly.
“You are fallacious,” he mentioned. “I am advantageous. I did it.”
This text appeared in our April 2024 difficulty.
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