Paralysis. Fever. Convulsions. These are just some of the symptoms of a venomous snakebite. If you’re lucky and live close to a hospital, you can receive antivenom and leave with a story and a scar. For those who live in more rural areas, a snakebite can mean the loss of a limb or life.
While working as a medical assistant in India during his freshman year, Texas A&M biomedical engineering student and Brown Scholar Anish Easwaran witnessed the fate of a farmer bitten by a snake while tending to his crop. When the farmer arrived at the hospital 30 minutes later, doctors had no choice but to amputate the farmer’s leg, an action Easwaran believes could have been prevented altogether.
From that experience, Easwaran dreamed up Aegis Armor — a low-cost device to protect farmers from snakebites in developing nations and agricultural regions. The customizable armor, composed of impenetrable material, is placed around the lower leg and ankle to block a snake from contacting the skin.
“My first instinct is to explore engineering solutions, especially if I can’t see an immediate clinical answer,” he said. “That experience motivated me to create something that could prevent similar tragedies.”
According to the National Institutes of Health, an estimated one million snakebites occur in India annually, causing around 58,000 deaths. Existing snakebite prevention solutions cost $50 or more, which is almost half the monthly pay for an average farmer making a little under 10,218 rupees — or $119. Easwaran’s solution costs less than $5.
Since its conception, Easwaran and his business partner, Texas A&M undergraduate Kaushik Avadhanula, have delivered more than 5,000 products to farmers and have over 13,000 orders in queue. Easwaran is currently working with the Clinton Foundation as a Clinton Global Innovation Fellow — an honor given to the top 25 emerging social entrepreneurs in the world — to broaden the reach of Aegis Armor and plans to expand the company's efforts to Vietnam.
“The goal is to meet the demand we’re seeing because we have a lot of interest from nonprofits,” Easwaran said. “Our next market is Vietnam. Whenever we expand to a new market, my partner and I visit at least one village in the affected area to ensure the armor design works for the local community.”
These visits allow Easwaran to witness his product in action, while also observing any pain points in user experience.
“We’ve learned that people are only willing to use these kinds of armors if they don’t feel like an external imposition,” he said. “When we first did the pilot study in India, the initial design used an outer layer of recycled car leather, however, the initial version looked industrial, and very few people wanted to use it.”
From talking to users in India, Easwaran and his partner discovered that their designs needed to feel more personalized, especially for women and children who often stitch their own clothing,
“We started incorporating traditional clothing patterns and allowed the community to add their own fabrics to the armor,” he explained. “This small change made a huge difference. The adoption rates skyrocketed because people felt invested in the solution and saw it as a natural part of their lives.”
One Entrepreneur, Two Devices
ElastaScan uses a sensor suite to track muscle activation during movement. This can help physical therapists check a patient's form and ensure supporting muscles aren’t compensating for lack of intended muscle activation.
“We originally focused on physical therapy because recovery exercises rely on proper form, and improper form often delays recovery,” Easwaran said. “I saw this firsthand while shadowing orthopedic surgeons. A doctor predicted a patient would recover in six weeks, but eight weeks later, they were still in physical therapy. With our device, we can precisely measure muscle activation, quantify recovery, and make form correction easier.”
Awards and Recognitions
Balbin and Easwaran won first place at an Aggie Pitch competition for ElastaScan. Easwaran and his business partners have participated in several grant programs, starting with the National Science Foundation I-Corps program at Texas A&M. I-Corps sponsored them to attend the CES tech conference, where they presented their work and met collaborators.
The team was also accepted into the Global Health Innovation Challenge II hosted by the Center for Advancing Innovation. Through this year-long program, the team pitched and connected with investors and federal agencies for grants. ElastaScan was recognized as one of the top 13 global health entrepreneurial ventures in the country and awarded an Innovation Excellence Award.
Easwaran says the student organization Sling Health helped foster his entrepreneurial spirit. The organization’s advisor and biomedical engineering professor Dr. Saurabh Biswas guided him through the I-Corps program, helped with grant applications and provided invaluable advice.
“Dr. Biswas taught me to focus on identifying real problems before jumping to solutions,” Easwaran added. “He emphasized talking to experts and gathering data to understand the problem thoroughly. This shifted my approach from purely engineering-focused to more problem-driven. He also helped us navigate the regulatory landscape, FDA rules, and incubator programs for ElastaScan.”
For the next steps, Easwaran plans on expanding manufacturing and distributing Aegis Armor to more nonprofits globally. Regarding ElastaScan, Easwaran and his team are continuing to develop, prototype, and refine their product before moving forward with a clinical trial.