PhysioPlay Team

By conducting 50+ user interviews with practicing physiotherapists, teachers, and students, we understood there was an evident gap—there wasn't an interactive and scalable manner in which physiotherapy students could practice clinical decision-making in a risk-free manner. Conventional learning methods did not provide instant feedback, and hence, it was challenging for students to enhance reasoning skills. Also, by visiting the physiotherapy colleges, we understood that OPD & IPD settings differ immensely depending on whether the college is government or private. We also understood that several students want to pursue master's courses overseas, but several of them are uncertain about their practical abilities. Understanding these issues validated our solution idea of PhysioPlay, and therefore, developing technology—more precisely AI—was worthwhile and fulfilling.

Even with some frustrating interviews in which individuals couldn't grasp the technology or envision its near-term use, we persevered. The ongoing feedback loops and dialogue with actual users made the experience a blast, and establishing relationships with professionals allowed us to hone our strategy. It was a process of learning, adjusting, and remaining steadfast.

Converting an idea into a real product never happens in a linear manner. It happens through iteration, learning, and remaining receptive to a pivot. Our experience with PhysioPlay was no different. We had a completely different idea when we initially became a part of the SimPPL fellowship. But after consulting with Swapneel, Dr. Vedika Rathi, and the SimPPL community, we realized that our initial idea was already researched to a great extent, very widely practiced, and impossible. This brought us back to square one, and we designed PhysioPlay—a platform utilizing AI to bridge theory and practical learning for education in the area of physiotherapy.

PhysioPlay is a WhatsApp-based AI platform that enables student physiotherapists to practice interacting with patients. The students can communicate with AI-personas of patients using conversational AI and RAG methods and ask diagnostic queries to get instantaneous feedback on their examination.

The platform is distinct from other content-focused solutions that are static. PhysioPlay is interactive, mobile, and is meant to support clinical thinking abilities. It has some key features such as:

• Simulated Patient Interactions – Virtual patients with AI-driven dynamic responses. • Instant Diagnostic Feedback – Real-time diagnosis checking and correction. • Gamified Learning – Reward-based tracking of progress to promote engagement. • Scenario-Based Training – Exposure to a wide range of physiotherapy cases across various domains.

Students using PhysioPlay for risk-free real world diagnostics simulations.

The process of going from ideation to a functional prototype involved significant research, technical work, and testing. The SimPPL framework was instrumental in guiding our process. Perhaps the most valuable lesson we learned was the value of collaboration. Rather than making assumptions about what users would require, we engaged in close collaboration with physiotherapy students, educators, and industry experts to learn about their challenges, test the demand and refine our product.

The following was the process followed: • User Research & Validation – Interviews with students, educators, and professionals to identify pain points. • Development of an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) – Creating a working prototype utilizing LLMs, RAG, and LangChain to mimic real patient interactions. • Iterative Testing & Feedback Loops – Piloting with physiotherapy students and professionals, integrating feedback to enhance precision and user experience. • Market Validation – Talking to industry stakeholders to establish willingness to pay and making sure the solution was commercially viable.

Along the way, Swapneel, Dr. Vedika Rathi, and the SimPPL team gave us invaluable feedback that allowed us to sharpen our methodology, making sure we created something that was not only innovative but also necessary.

Polishing Our Pitch: One of the initial hurdles was crafting a clean and to-the-point value proposition. It required many drafts and tons of feedback before we could clearly communicate the key benefits of PhysioPlay. Rehearsal assisted, and gradually we transitioned from too wordy to precision-tuned in our message.

Pricing & Business Model: We began by struggling to price our product appropriately and making deals that matched the true worth of our solution. We gained insight from real negotiations that holding back and not having an effect cost us. We developed sharper instincts and methods for economic sustainability and profitable pricing over time.

Technical Implementation: To create an AI assistant that is both fun and clinically relevant was technically demanding. We had to fine-tune huge language models and combine physiotherapy domain knowledge in a way that would generate accurate and educationally relevant responses—no easy task.

Learning Web Development from Scratch: We all four had solid backgrounds in AI/ML. So when it came to building a user-facing platform, we had to change and divide work, learning how to build web stuff in the process. The sudden departure of one of our core members after 13 months (who had worked intensively on the web stack) disrupted our flow even further—she decided to work on placements and couldn't cope with the startup. It shook one of the pillars of our tech stack, but we refocused, re-organized, and kept progressing.

Shattering Trust Obstacles with Practitioners: Across over 50+ user interviews, especially with practicing physiotherapists, we noticed a prevalent fear: that AI would replace them. Convincing them that PhysioPlay is an exclusive case-based simulation tool for educational purposes—never for replacement—was the communication challenge. We underscored its intent to facilitate students practicing in a risk-free, real-world-like environment.

Reaching Government Colleges and OPD/IPD Staff: Another difficulty was accessing physiotherapists who were employed in government hospitals. Due to their hectic schedules in OPD/IPD settings, they were often unavailable or too busy to take interviews. This made it more time-consuming to gather feedback and required more persistence on our part.

PhysioPlay is already being actively used by physiotherapy students and professionals. We're conducting continuous industry pilots and, perhaps most importantly, individuals are paying for the solution—a strong vote of confidence in the real-world value it provides. Beyond usage, PhysioPlay has also been showcased at several prestigious platforms, including Aavishkar 2024, DJ Responsible Innovation Day, and the German Delegation x DJSCE 2025 summit. These opportunities have not only reaffirmed our purpose but also grown our reach and credibility within academic and innovation networks.

We continue to iterate and grow the platform to keep it aligned and useful to both students and teachers. The ride thus far has been an eye-opener—teaching us not only how to design a product, but how to design it for the right people.

Team: Yash Buddhadev (CEO), Vivek Vasani (CTO), Aryan More (COO), Ami Khatri (Ex-Research Lead)

PhysioPlay is just the start. What we have accomplished up until now has provided us with a treasure trove of insight into the actual issues that come up in physiotherapy training, and we will keep shaping our solution. Some of the most significant advances that we are now moving towards are:

• Expanding to More Colleges & Institutions– Expanding coverage to physiotherapy colleges for wider adoption. • Enhancing AI Capabilities – Enhancing diagnostic quality and response generation for more natural conversation. • Learning Management System (LMS) Integration – Making PhysioPlay fully integrated with existing education systems. • Personalized Learning Paths – Matching conditions based on the advancement of individual students to a more personalized experience. • Beyond Medical Specializations – Expanding our model to other medical specialties where expertise is critical.

With these advances, PhysioPlay can be an effective resource for physiotherapy students and educators, making clinical education more convenient, interactive, and effective.