He Was 14 When an Accident Left Him Paralysed — Now He’s Building Tools to Help Others Recover

On a quiet afternoon in Aurangabad, a teenager sits at his desk, deeply focused. A laptop screen glows softly in front of him. His fingers — steady, deliberate, assured — move across the keyboard, shaping a piece of intricate 3D art. Beside him, his mother watches, a quiet smile of relief and pride on her face.

Three years ago, even this simple act would have felt impossible.

Today, Arnav Maharishi is known as a young innovator. At 17, he has built two rehabilitation tools — an AI-powered application that tracks fine motor recovery and a wearable device that helps paralysis patients regain upper limb movement. 

His work earned him the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in Science and Technology in 2025.

But the story behind these innovations is not one of sudden brilliance. It is one of interruption, uncertainty, and a long, deeply personal journey back to self.

When everything changed 

In 2022, life as Arnav knew it came to a halt.

At 14, he and his mother met with an accident — one that left him critically injured and unconscious.

What followed was a period his family describes as suspended time. For 11 days, Arnav remained in a coma, dependent on life support, his condition shifting between hope and fear.

“When he was admitted, we were told not to expect much,” recalls his mother, Dr Anupriya Maharishi. “The first few days were about survival. Nothing beyond that.”

She was hospitalised, recovering from her own injuries. For nearly a week, she could not see her son.

“When I finally saw him, just a couple of days before he came out of the coma, it was overwhelming. You’re looking at your child, but you don’t know what lies ahead.”

When Arnav regained consciousness, relief came, but it was incomplete. The extent of his injuries surfaced gradually.

He had paralysis on his dominant right side. He couldn’t move his hand. Sitting up required assistance. Basic actions, once instinctive, now demanded effort, patience, and help.

There were other challenges too — memory gaps, personality shifts, and moments of disconnection.

“There were times he didn’t recognise me,” his mother says quietly. “He called me ‘aunty.’”

It felt, in many ways, like meeting a different version of someone they knew so well.

The weight of recovery

Recovery did not arrive as a breakthrough. It unfolded slowly, through repetition and routine.

After initial treatment, Arnav’s rehabilitation stretched across cities — from Mumbai back to Aurangabad, eventually settling into a demanding daily schedule. Physiotherapy and occupational therapy filled his days.

The physical strain was visible. The emotional toll took longer to surface.

“In the beginning, I didn’t feel as affected as I thought I would,” Arnav reflects. “But over time, everything caught up.”

As weeks turned into months, the gap between who he had been and who he was becoming felt harder to ignore. The loss of independence, the uncertainty of recovery, the slow pace of progress, it all began to weigh on him.

“There was a point where I started questioning everything,” he says. “What’s the point of living if I can’t even do basic things? If I can’t go back to how I was?”

He describes it as a constant internal conflict — one part trying to stay hopeful, the other pulling him down.

For his mother, those months were equally difficult.

“He didn’t express much initially,” she says. “Later, I realised he had been struggling silently.”

When he finally opened up, it marked a turning point. With the help of a counsellor, Arnav began to process not just his injury, but its emotional aftermath.

Alongside therapy, small but meaningful steps followed. He returned to school after a gap year. He picked up squash again. Each step, however small, began to rebuild a sense of possibility.

Where Ideas Took Shape

Somewhere within this long process of recovery, a quiet shift began to take place.

Arnav started observing, not just his own progress, but the systems around him.

“I noticed that a lot of rehabilitation depends on subjective feedback,” he says. “You’re told you’re improving, but you don’t really know how much.”

During therapy, he found himself searching for something more concrete.

“If I asked how I was doing compared to yesterday, the answer would be encouraging, but not specific. There was no way to quantify progress.”

That gap stayed with him.

At first, it remained a thought. But after returning to school in 2023, it began to take clearer shape.

What emerged was FAIRCHANCE which stands for Fine Motor Artificial Intelligence Assisted Rehabilitation Chance is an AI-based application designed to track fine motor movements, especially the small, precise finger actions essential for everyday tasks like writing, eating, or buttoning a shirt.

Using computer vision and machine learning, the system works through a standard smartphone or laptop camera. It tracks hand and finger movements in real time, extracts key motion patterns, and converts them into clear, measurable feedback.

“It doesn’t just tell you that you’re doing well,” Arnav explains. “It shows you exactly how much you’ve improved.”

By turning movement into data, FAIRCHANCE brings objectivity into rehabilitation — offering patients a clearer sense of progress without relying solely on verbal feedback or expensive equipment.

Around the same time, another challenge stood out, one he had experienced firsthand.

A common rehabilitation method encourages patients to use their affected limb by restricting the stronger one, often by physically tying it.

While effective, it can feel restrictive and uncomfortable.

“Patients often avoid it because of how it looks and feels,” Arnav says.

Instead of forcing restriction, he reimagined the approach.

He designed a wrist-worn device that subtly guides behaviour. Worn on the stronger hand, it detects movement and delivers a gentle vibration whenever the patient begins to rely on it — prompting them to switch to the weaker hand.

“It’s not about forcing,” he says. “It’s about encouraging conscious use.”

Both innovations are now being tested in clinical settings, with trials underway on 30 individuals for FAIRCHANCE and 20 for the ActiveHand Wristband.

For his mother, this marked a shift — from recovery to creation.

Guided by care, built with purpose

Dr Ashwini Kale, who led Arnav’s neuro-rehabilitation, became a key influence in shaping these ideas.

“She saw the potential almost immediately,” recalls his mother. “Within days, she helped develop a concept note and initiated the process to protect it.”

Her role extended beyond therapy. She became a mentor, helping bridge the gap between lived experience and clinical relevance.

At the same time, Arnav continued building his technical skills independently.

“I learned most of it on my own,” he says, “through online courses and self-practice.”

He went on to complete online structured programs, including the Machine Learning Specialisation by Stanford University, along with courses in OpenCV and TensorFlow — gradually building the foundation needed to bring his ideas to life.

His curiosity, something his mother had seen since childhood, now found direction.

“He’s always been someone who learns by exploring,” she says. “Even as a child, he would teach himself things online — whether it was coding or 3D art.”

That combination — personal experience, technical curiosity, and mentorship gave his work both depth and purpose.

Built from within the struggle

What sets Arnav’s innovations apart is not just the technology, but the perspective behind them.

They were not designed from a distance. They were shaped in therapy rooms — in moments of frustration, in repetition, in lived experience.

For Arnav, recovery was not just about regaining movement, but understanding it.

“He always wanted to know the ‘why’ behind everything,” recalls Dr. Kale. “That level of awareness is rare.”

That curiosity became clarity.

Instead of passively following a system, he began to question it — where it worked, where it didn’t, and what it lacked. The absence of measurable feedback, the discomfort of certain methods, the inaccessibility of advanced tools — these were not abstract problems. They were lived realities.

So when he began building, he wasn’t just solving a problem — he was responding to experience.

“The most meaningful solutions often come from patients themselves,” says Dr Kale. “They understand the problem at a depth others cannot.”

Both his innovations were designed to be simple, low-cost, and scalable usable not just in advanced hospitals, but in everyday settings.

“It’s not about complexity,” she adds. “It’s about consistency. When patients can see even small improvements, it builds confidence and confidence is a huge part of recovery.”

That understanding of both the physical and emotional journey became the foundation of his work.

A strength reimagined

Arnav’s journey is not defined only by what he went through, but by how he responded to it.

For his mother, that strength was always there.

“He’s always been a resilient child,” says Dr Anupriya Maharishi. “Someone who finds his way through challenges.”

That independence became crucial in the years that followed — whether learning new skills, returning to school, or staying committed to recovery.

But his journey was never his alone.

“It takes a collective effort,” his mother reflects. “Family, doctors, therapists everyone plays a role.”

For Dr Kale, what stands out is what Arnav represents.

“There are two kinds of people — those who see problems, and those who try to solve them. Arnav belongs to the second group.”

Today, his work is already beginning to inspire others — patients, physiotherapists, student, people who see in his journey a reminder of what is possible.

But perhaps the most powerful part of his story lies in something quieter.

In the way, a deeply personal setback was not just endured, but understood and then transformed into something that could help others.

Because not every journey of recovery leads to innovation.

But sometimes, in the process of rebuilding, a person doesn’t just learn how to heal — they find a way to make that journey easier for others.

And in doing so, what once felt like a limitation becomes something far more powerful.

A strength that lights the way forward.

All images courtesy Arnav Maharishi

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