Rohit Aaron Lal

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I’m an engineer and industrial designer driven by curiosity and a desire to create meaningful, people focused outcomes. I’m passionate about health tech that makes lasting impacts.
When my brother was born, he was diagnosed with severe neonatal jaundice, undergoing numerous blood tests and phototherapy that caused him and my parents stress and pain. I wanted to take a technical yet empathetic approach to ensure fewer families face that same fear and uncertainty.
Jaundice (seen as the yellow discoloration of the skin) affects 60% of newborns, and diagnosis often relies on costly blood tests. The Bilipen offers an affordable, accessible alternative for rural and low-income communities.

Outstanding Project: Design for Health

The Bilipen

The Bilipen acts as a simple positive and negative scan for jaundice that can be done in seconds. By using a simple LED ring based colour system and off the shelf components production costs rapidly drop.

Explaining the Ring Stages

The Bilipen comes with an inbuilt force sensor to make sure that consistent pressure and readings can be taken safely as the test needs to be done on the sternum for consistent readings. When applying pressure the LED fills up with white light until the ring is completely filled. If too much pressure is applied LEDs start changing to red. Once the correct pressure is held for 3s the colour sensor automatically turns on and takes readings. Once the data is processed the ring turns green if the newborn is jaundice free and amber if they do have jaundice.

Amber was picked instead of the usual red to not alarm parents watching the test being done with a glaring emergency light.

Prototyping and Testing

Before arriving at the current form and build of the bilipen the concept started as a box form and would’ve been held and stored similar to a pager. Prototypes included user testing on interfaces, tech packages, form sizes, as well as an accompanied charging port. Models ranged from rigid structural forms in paper and cardboard to organic forms in clay and gave important insights like button placement, model sizes, or fingers covering sensors.

Ultimately after rounds of feedback and iteration a cylindrical form based on a pen design made the most sense for ergonomics and led to the product today.

Inside the Pen

The Bilipen’s tech package integrates an LED ring, USB-C port, and rechargeable battery with a microcontroller that interfaces with the force and colour sensors. Together, these elements enable accurate jaundice detection, built-in safety measures, and responsive LED feedback.

The first Test - A functioning model

The model produced is a fully functioning model with the included colour and force sensors. Shown is the first successful run of the wired-up model with power supplied through the USB-C port.

The Bilipen in Use

Testing is an easy process that can be done in under 30 seconds making for an easier and less painful process than blood tests. By doing this hospitals have a reduced load on labs and reduced wait times for diagnosis. Testing is as simple as switching on the device, connecting to the hospital’s system, applying the right pressure and reading the results

Outstanding Project: Design for Health

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