Greek University Students Create Handicapable Shopping Cart

Greek students at the Democritus University of Thrace, in northern Greece, have created a unique business idea based on a shopping cart able to assist handicapped people during their shopping in a super market. The students’ business plan, which stood out in a local entrepreneurship competition, comprises a modified shopping cart that features a touch screen and can navigate through the aisles of the super market, while also reading the price tag of each product and determining the total price of all products added to the trolley. “We focused initially on people who are visually impaired and found out that we can add a base to the cart which helps them move around the store,” one of the students said, and added that they are also planning to adjust the cart to accommodate people with restricted mobility. The handicapable shopping cart is based on the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, a system aiming to replace the popular barcode system. By communicating with RFID tags imbedded in the products, the shopping cart will be able to determine the product’s price, add it to the total price once in the cart, while at the same time also updating the store’s inventory. The “guide cart,” as the invention is called, will also facilitate a faster check-out at the cash register, as it will have already predetermined the cart’s total sum. Finally, the only thing done by the cashier is to receive the money and give the consumer his receipt.

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