Blink to Speak: a free eye language that lets paralysed patients talk (2018)

An estimated 60 million people worldwide live with ALS, motor neurone disease, spinal cord injury or paralysis — an alert mind inside a body that cannot speak, type or gesture. For most in developing countries, the only alternatives were tedious letter boards or assistive devices they could not afford, so even basic needs went unexpressed. A TBWA India team member who cared for a relative with ALS had watched him point with his eyes at messages written on the curtains of the room — and that became the seed of Blink to Speak.

After months of research with doctors, patients and caregivers, TBWA India designed the guide with NeuroGen Brain & Spine Institute and the Asha Ek Hope Foundation. It uses 50 simple eye movements — assembled from eight actions: shut, blink, left, right, up, down, roll and wink — mapped to messages patients actually need, from 'yes' and 'I'm okay' to 'thank you' and calls for help. The eye language was printed as an illustrated book in seven Indian and seven international languages, given free to patients, placed in nursing colleges and offered as a download.

Distribution became the point: more than 10,000 Blink to Speak books were handed free to patients and many more were downloaded, per the ADFEST entry. The work won the Lions Health Grand Prix for Good at Cannes 2018 — TBWA India's first Grand Prix — and followed it with Gold and Silver Lotuses in Design at ADFEST 2019, turning a family's improvised curtain system into a free, learnable language.