Govand Mohammed - Invest My Idea platform
Govand Mohammed, Founder of Checke System and second place winner of Rwanga foundation’s Invest My Idea competition at HITEX 2022 shares his story.
“Grew up in Iraq, in the city of Erbil in a family that was deeply involved in engineering and machinery, I’ve always been curious about building things. I had a hobby of building small RC drones, telescopes, microscopes, and small wearable robots” said Govand.
In 2013, there were some changes in GPU power, Real-time 3D Scanning using laser and 3D Printing, and CNCs that made it possible for me to start making equipment and machinery. I was so interested that I went to technical and vocational trainings on CAD, and CAM, learning how to produce machinery, do casting, create molds, and started producing the designs I had imaged before. In 2015, I started working on my own, which was a game changer, I had my own budget, so I no longer relied on my parents’ budget. After my father’s sickness of cancer, I had to rely more on myself and had to support my family since I am their eldest child.
Seeing the unfortunate effect of the war on our country and seeing that many innocent people are being permanently disabled because of the war including bombs, rockets, missiles, and most importantly the mines that made so many people disabled. The little help that is here for them made me realize that this big gap needs to be filled, so I came up with an idea that will be mixing my knowledge, hobby, and technology to help those in need by making prosthetics.
I Started making automated systems for smart houses, then more advanced robotics and systems, and human limbs for amputees of war and conflicts, birth defects, and accidents, so I took it on myself as a challenge to support those who are in need. I started designing arms and legs in 2016. I was able to make the first working sample in 2017. Then I developed that to make a product that could compete with products from Germany such as their Robotic Arms.
At first, I started focusing on making hands for the amputees who don’t have hands and designed to enable amputees to perform day-to-day activities, arms that use Mya sensors to get information from thoughts and translate impulses sent by the spinal cord that is sent to muscles. I was able to produce arms that support doing small activities normally.
With the funds received from the Rwanga Foundation, I would be able to grow my business even more, properly structure my workplace and organize as I have several heavy machinery and several 3D printers, and lots of raw materials that need to be organized properly. With the help from Rwanga Foundation, I would be able to scale up my operation, improve delivery time for the clients, and improve my products both technically and materially.
Finally, I kept my focus mainly on making the amputees using their hands and having feedback feelings and focused on Real-time interaction with the environment with human-robot collaboration. This has become what I enjoyed studying and focusing on and wanted to do the most and my goal is to make the best limbs for amputees in the world with functionality and feedback feelings.