Swapna Sundar’s research explores the ethical issues surrounding research in rehabilitation engineering and assistive technolologies involving persons with disabilities. She also proposes to to examine the leagal and constitutional aspects of conducting research on persons with disabilities. Swapna is a lawyer by training and is a member (legal) of several Institutional Ethics Committees in Chennai. She is also the CEO of IP DOME Strategy Advisors Pvt. Ltd., a company that supports protection and commercialisation of inventions. In this capacity, Swapna emphasises the need for compliance with industry standards and domestic regulatory requirements for new assistive devices - which is also addressed in the proposed research.
Swapna’s past work has included a Tamil Nadu Urban Development Project (TNUDP) grant study on Rationalisation of Trade Licensing in Tamil Nadu, and strategies for deploying IP in India for the UK Intellectual Property Office. Her articles on Technology and Law have been published in The Hindu Business Line and in the Indian Journal of IP Law . Apart from teaching IP Law at NALSAR and in various institutions such as VIT and Symbiosis Law School, she has taught an elective in Technology and Law at the ACJ-Bloomberg Course on Business and Financial Journalism in 2017. She is the author of the IP Smart Workbook - the Lab to Market Guide to Inventing .
In addition to Technology and Law, Swapna has an interest in governance, smart cities, crowd control and policing and has had articles published in newspapers and the Economic and Political Weekly . She is the author of Occupy Marina! a book exploring the various issues surrounding the Jallikattu Protest on the Marina in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, in January 2017.
Research :
At the Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, her research will be on “Rehabilitation Technology and Assistive Technology Research – Clinical Trials Ethics Perspective”.
Read Policy Report No. 26 here: Bridging Multiple Gaps: Strengthening India’s Research Protocols for Assistive Aids.
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