Janhavi Joshi, Nupura Kirloskar

The prelude to Janhavi Joshi's and Nupura Kirloskar's social entrepreneurial journey came in 2014. As students of industrial design at Pune's MIT Institute of Design then, they had developed the prototype of a wearable product that helped hearing-impaired dancers feel music through vibrations.

Buoyed by the positive response, in 2015, they founded BleeTech Innovations, which now manufactures what it claims is India's first wearable—a watch branded BleeWatch—for the hearing impaired. "Hearing aids could be stigma for some, but not a wearable," says Kirloskar.

BleeWatch can record sounds like a doorbell, fire alarm, a baby's cry, a pressure cooker whistle or a dog's bark into a connected app. This is notified to the wearer with unique vibration patterns, colours and icons. The watch can also send a help signal to five emergency numbers.

A basic version, priced around Rs 2,500, and a smartwatch version priced at Rs 5,000-7,000 is set for commercial launch. The pilot form was distributed through the charity EnAble India, Red Cross School for the Deaf and Yuva Association of the Deaf.

BleeTech's investors are Social Alpha and IIT-Bombay; it has also received an R&D grant from Nasscom. "We were looking for innovators who could serve the bottom of the pyramid... and BleeTech fitted the bill," says Dhruv Pandey, part of the portfolio and innovation division at Social Alpha.

BleeTech also runs AskBlee a platform that provides video content in Indian sign language, and Blee TV, an entertainment and education platform for the hearing impaired.