Design Indaba Global Graduate, Mazbahul Islam, presents his project, Safewheel, which was designed to address a critical gap in rural healthcare in Banglasdesh, limited access to medical care when needed the most . In regions where ambulances are scarce or unaffordable, delays in reaching medical care can be fatal. Safewheel reimagines the ambulance as a lightweight, three-wheeled vehicle capable of navigating narrow, uneven rural roads. Affordable, locally operated and fast, it brings emergency response directly to communities often excluded from formal healthcare systems. Safewheels is able to deliver medical supplies to remote areas as well as transport people to hospitals when needed.
Safewheels’ impact earned international recognition: Safewheel won the UNDP Youth Co:Lab Award in 2019, Asia’s largest youth social entrepreneurship platform, supported by the United Nations Development Programme and Citi Foundation. During his Design Indaba talk, Islam shares the personal drive and purpose behind this award-winning innovation. As a business graduate, he dreamt of making a lot of money, but then had to make a hard decision. As the only son in a middle-class family, did he have the right to quit a stable job to pursue a career as an entrepreneur? His ideals won out and a medical emergency close to home persuaded him to focus his attentions on providing low-cost emergency medical care in rural areas in his native country. “During the course of my work, I learnt two lessons,” he says. “It’s never too late to decide who and what you want to be; and only you can decide how big or small your challenges are.”
Watch the full Design Indaba talk here.
