mangaluru three indian american children raised funds to procure five low cost respiratory device deemed helpful during covid times at the hospitals in coastal districtsthe low cost devices christened viveka jeevavardhaka were developed by a team from vivekananda college of engineering and technology vcet putturthe new jerseybased students raised funds for the world central kitchen usa through their performances and aimed at donating devices to hospitals in the coast amid the rising covid19 casesbhakti hegde 16 told toi my father anand hegde an engineer received a video about this device on his phone i have been reading about difficulties migrants especially women in india faced during the lockdown i was keen on doing something for them and when my dad received this video we thought of raising funds to donate a few of them these devices can be helpful even after the covid crisis endsbhakti a grade 11 student shared this idea with ananya and pranav who were happy to be on board through an online platform she presented light music while grade 9 students ananya bhat performed a classical dance and pranav joshi presented classical music on july 3 they managed to reach the target within a week of streaming the video liveduring the pandemic we thought that this is the best thing we can do i have been learning bharatanatyam for the past eight years said 14 yearold ananyaanand hegde who hails from sirsi said we may donate two more devices funds are being raised through crowdfunding platformsprofessor shrikanth rao hod electronics and communications engineering vcet said currently we have completed the production of five devices and based on the demand we will take up production of more devices production of oneunit costing rs 16000 plus taxes takes about a weekwe were hoping that the government would place orders we never expected an nri to take note of our work the devices are expected to be handed over to hospitals during the week he saidthe respiratory support device controls the quantity and speed of oxygen supplied from the oxygen cylinder and makes breathing easier for patients it can also run on a battery unit the wenlock district hospital had evaluated this device developed based on suggestions by a team of doctors rao said