After Diana Perkins took an inspiring course on disability justice at Brown University, the engineering student found that many wheelchair users had a difficult time going grocery shopping on their own, unable to hold items on their lap.
She created the LapSnap in February of last year, a multipurpose bag made of waterproof canvas for wheelchairs, which has a design based on the body it’s sitting on instead of the chair. It’s collapsible, bringing it to about 3 inches thick.
The product has already garnered some monetary support, such as a grant from Brown’s Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship. The targeted demographic includes female millennials, disabled veterans and new wheelchair users.
Since graduating in the spring, Perkins has worked full time on her company, now named includesign LLC, including learning how to sew so she could personally stitch 10 prototypes and send them to test users.
She plans initially to set a price tag of $50 for each bag. She said the price may eventually be lower when she finds a proper manufacturer.
In the long term, however, Perkins said she wants the LapSnap to be the first of many products for the wheelchair-user community.
