The award
Arnav Anupriya Maharshi of Aurangabad, Maharashtra, received the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2025 in the Science and Technology category, conferred by the President of India on Veer Bal Diwas, 26 December 2025. He was 17 years old at the time.
The official citation describes him as a young divyang innovator who turned personal challenges into purpose by developing an AI-based rehabilitation tool for hand paralysis.
From patient to inventor
In 2022, Arnav survived a near-fatal road accident that left him paralysed on his dominant right side. Two years of physiotherapy followed. The experience became the brief for his inventions, aimed at patients in rural and low-income settings who cannot easily reach or afford regular therapy.
He built a patented, copyrighted wrist-worn device that supports gross-motor rehabilitation — the larger movements needed for everyday activities. Alongside it he developed FAIR Chance, an AI-powered application for finger and hand rehabilitation that runs on an ordinary smartphone or laptop, gives real-time, data-driven feedback, tracks movements and reinforces exercises between physiotherapy sessions. It is designed to supplement physiotherapists, not replace them.
FAIR Chance was reported to have won an International Innovation Award at IIT Bombay’s Techfest 2024, and the wrist device a place, with a global scholarship, on the Harvard Venture TECH Summer Program 2025. A Class XI student at the Jain International School in Aurangabad, Arnav aims to ensure no patient is left behind in recovery for want of resources. When a tool is designed by someone who has needed it themselves, what changes about the design? That is a question from us, not part of his record.
SOURCES
- PIB · PMRBP-2025 awardee list (official), 26 December 2025 ↗ · Official award list
- The Times of India · 27 December 2025 ↗ · National press report
