As the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) season is approaching, a PA resident and his Saudi partner invented a smart parasol that would help relieve the hardships modern-day pilgrims experience as they go about fulfilling their religious duty — visiting Mecca at least once in their life time.
The parasol is powered by several solar panels (plenty of sunshine in Mecca) that feed a GPS system, a fan, a lamp, and three USB outlets for mobile phone chargers and a computer tablet.
Inventor Manal Dandis, from Hebron, told Aliqtisadi.ps his smart parasol will help the pilgrims to meet basic performance requirements during the Hajj season, especially alleviating the sweltering heat and allowing the pilgrims to access official announcements as well as call home.
“The parasol converts solar energy collected by the solar cells on the surface, and runs a fan to cool the heat, increasing the pilgrims’ stamina and avoiding the risk of sun strokes,” Dandis said.
He explained that these smart parasols will help pilgrims not get lost, and any family participating in the pilgrimage will be able to trace all of its members by networking their parasols, so no one disappears in the madding crowd as so often happens in Mecca.
Dandis said the GPS system, plus the smart phone, can be installed on the parasol and immediately create communication networks for related pilgrims, “making it easy to communicate in between pilgrims and to determine their whereabouts and how to reach them.”
Dandis has obtained a patent for his idea and is looking for an international company or a government agency to launch commercial production of the parasols at a cost the pilgrims could afford.