Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is one of the most common developmental disabilities across the world. Although there is no specific data on the number of children impacted by this disorder in India, WHO estimates that one in 100 children has autism disorders, which may range anywhere from social, communication, and imagination impairments to repetitive behaviour.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, India is home to more than 2 Mn individuals with ASD. Despite the intensity of the issue, not only is there a big dearth of resources in this area but also awareness around this disorder in the country, and, in many cases, even medical professionals end up misdiagnosing or underdiagnosing the condition.

Fortunately, Bengaluru-based Purple Butterfly Technologies, a healthtech startup, is working on addressing the need for early detection and intervention of ASD in India with the help of technology.

“Our core value proposition is that we are trying to create awareness for the early detection and early intervention of ASD. If detected and intervened early, the life of children struggling with ASD changes by around 23%. The faster you can start the intervention, the better would be the result for children,” Purple Butterfly Technologies’ cofounder Debangshu Dasgupta told Inc42.

The ASD birth rate increased between 2021 and 2022, with a global jump of 43%, Dasgupta said, adding that the number of ASD children in the country surpassed the number of spastic children in November 2022 for the first time in history.

Dasgupta, a member of the Autism Society of India, is the parent of a child diagnosed with ASD. He said that he could relate to the misery that this disorder could bring to parents and families.

Dasgupta’s struggles in getting his son the right interventions in India made him relocate to Canada about 10 years ago. At that point in time, he said, the ecosystem was broken and the awareness was negligible in India. He came back to India after five years and the initial idea for Purple Butterfly Technologies originated after he realised the ecosystem was still broken in the country.

Determined to help other parents catch early symptoms of autism in their children, he joined hands with Subhrojyothi Mukherjee and Vijay Ramamoorthy in 2020 for the inception of Purple Butterfly.

Mukherjee, who was a corporate professional, is also an enthusiast in the area of clinical psychology. On the other hand, Ramamoorthy has over two decades of experience in product development and architecting technology solutions in the fields of healthcare, digital transformation, agritech, and marketing automation.

Project Butterfly Spreads Its Wings

The platform, which is in its beta phase, aims to target two types of users. While one set of users would be parents, the other set would be specialists, including doctors, occupational therapists, and speech therapists.

For the early detection of ASD, parents can register on the platform for free. To detect ASD in children, a team at St. John’s Medical College in Bengaluru has created an instrument, which is a set of questions, to understand or detect whether the child falls in the spectrum or not.

The healthtech startup has also filed to get intellectual property rights (IPR) for the instrument that is developed by 16 doctors from the medical college.

Moreover, the platform has developed a five-minute instruction video, a video queue, which directs the parents to ask their children to arrange their toys.

“Based on the arrangement patterns and the answer to the questions, our AI and ML platform determines if a particular child is under ASD or not,” Dasgupta explained.

The results are shown in three different colours – Red: Signalling definitely under the spectrum; Amber: Indicating a 50-50 chance for ASD; Green: Signalling child is not detected with ASD.

This assessment helps parents seek early consultation, and the platform helps them connect with professionals near them.

Purple Butterfly also plans to maintain medical records of the children diagnosed on its platform. This will help parents understand the progress of their child’s journey and professionals to get a single seamless view of the case history.

“In India usually and commonly HIPAA compliance is accepted, even though it’s a North American standard. Purple Butterfly Technologies in its architecture has made sure that it’s purely HIPAA compliant,” he said.

“We are not here to replace medical intervention but to give it a boost. When we were young, schools used to host dental and eye checkup camps, and based on the results, we would get treatment. We want to create a similar kind of awareness for ASD and its early detection,” Debangshu added.

The Road Ahead

For every transaction, the healthtech startup plans to charge a 15%-20% commission fee. Further, the platform will have other monetisation options such as in-app ads.

“We are built on an open API. Anybody who wants to build assistive technology for ASD, such as learning modules or music therapy, can cut down cost and come on our platform and promote it,” Dasgupta said.

Currently, the startup is doing the beta testing of its MVP. In simple words, it is testing the user journey in a controlled environment. To date, it has joined hands with 12 doctors, 3 therapists and 40 patients. This process is expected to continue until April, before the launch of the app in July.

Purple Butterfly has been selected as one of the three startups for the incubation programme by the Government of India-backed startup incubator Derbi Foundation. It has also won a grant from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.