Stories
Soft and Safe Hugs
Lahari Yellapragada a class IX student is an enthusiastic scholar with one of the sharpest minds at KARV. An all-rounder, she managed to leave her mark in almost all the domains and excelled in music, and current affairs while being game for all kinds of challenges.
Lahari’s curious mind was incited by an ad she saw in the Times NIE (an online newspaper forwarded each day by the school to all their students) which challenged students to “Use your Imagination to fight off COVID-19 problems.”
Lahari’s curious mind was incited by an ad she saw in the Times NIE which challenged students to “Use your Imagination to fight off COVID-19 problems.”
Lahari who missed school and the camaraderie of her friends and classmates, thought about a way to reach out to her friends despite the COVID restriction and thus was born what she called ‘SOFT N’ SAFE HUGS’.
According to her, “during the lockdown I used to chat with my friends, who would send me hugging emoji’s. This made me think about how we could hug without violating social distancing rules. I toyed with the idea and soon thought of converting emoji’s to soft toys and attaching them to sticks to ‘hug’ others while maintaining a distance.”
She drew out her concept and shared the idea and soon it was taken by TWORKS (one of the largest prototyping centre) and made into a real product. They also declared Lahari as a “Kid Inventor”.