Support Female Entrepreneurs in Palestine

We are Riham and Saja and we are partners in our project called Smart Shirt for Autistic Patients. We developed our business during TYO’s Youth Rehabilitation Through Entrepreneurship Program (YREP).

The Smart Shirt for Autistic Patients is an interactive electronic shirt designed to monitor an autistic child’s condition and movements. Parents or guardians receive an alert when the child is exposed to any external harm through a headset connected to the shirt. This gives the parents a chance to help their child if there is a problem, but also gives their children a critical sense of independence. The shirt uses vibration and music to relieve tension and provide psychological treatment for children. It is possible to record several different sounds and music on the shirt so that it is specialized to help them learn, develop their mind, and encourage participation in dialogue with others. The beneficiaries of this project are autistic patients and their families, but we sell the product to autism centers, associations, and hospitals that have sections for autistic patients.

We first learned about YREP through social networking sites. We underwent all the training phases and sessions in order to gain all the information and experience we needed. The training included many practical terms to help us build our project fully and smoothly. We completed the training with a professional marketing plan and a detailed financial budget that we can present to anyone without hesitation.

The final phase of the program was the mentorship phase. Meeting an inspiring doctor who specializes in autism helped us answer many questions related to medical information. this enabled us to develop our project better by linking information with technology. At the end of the program we received a $1,000 financial grant. This money allowed us to develop our project electronically. We were able to buy modern and sophisticated electronics that helped us build the project in a competitive commercial way in the Palestinian medical and electronic market.

We have been working on the project for two years now, but the first year was before we joined the program. We can say that our project was following a completely different course in the first year from the one we are now following after the entrepreneurship program. Now that we have our own business plan and we can develop it regularly, we can create pilot projects fully and deal with any confrontations and difficulties. This program made us a completely different professional person. We feel very proud of ourselves after completing all the program phases and applying it all on our project. We have been trying to have funding from the Higher Council for Innovation and Excellence for a long time, but we couldn’t have it. After finishing the program, we provided them with our detailed business, financial, and marketing plan. Finally, they accepted us and we are now in the process of having the fund. Today, we are still working on this project in various ways to reach its successful final image. We are not far from the final version of our shirt and we proudly say that this is thanks  the entrepreneurship program implemented by TYO.