Tag Archives: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

TED 2014 ‘pre’ opening with prosthetics made better by 3D printing, interdisciplinary network, an app for vision testing and the Internet of Things made open

Here’s today’s (March 17, 2014) second session and a list of the fellows along with a link to their TED 2014 biography (list and links from the TED 2014 schedule),

Somi Kakoma Vocalist + Composer + Culturist
Steve Boyes conservation biologist
David Sengeh biomechatronics engineer
Eric Berlow Ecologist
Uldus Bakhtiozina photographer + visual artist
Laurel Braitman science historian + writer
Eman Mohammed Photojournalist
Andrew Bastawrous eye surgeon + innovator
Kathryn Hunt Paleopathologist
Ayah Bdeir Engineer and artist
Will Potter Investigative journalist
Kitra Cahana Vagabond photojournalist + conceptual artist
Shih Chieh Huang Artist

David Moinina Sengeh, from the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab, focuses on biomechatronics and, more specifically, prosthetics. He was born and raised (till age 12?) in Sierra Leone where a civil war raged from 1991 to January 2002 when the war was declared finished. One of the legacies from the war has been war amputees resulting in a need for prosthetics and Sengher’s commitment to creating better prosthetics.

Even in wealthy parts of the world, an amputee may experience great discomfort from wearing a prosthetic that despite a number of fittings and adjustments never feels right and causes blisters and sores. In countries with fewer resources, getting a prosthetic that fits well is even more unlikely.

Sengeh has worked out a new way to create prosthetics that fit better and feel better, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the residual limb more accurately, followed by a finite-element analysis, then utilizing computer-aided design to create a  multilayer 3-D printed variable-resistance socket. One of Sengeh’s test subjects described his prosthetic socket as feeling like ‘pillows’. (You can read more about Sengeh and his work at MIT in a Dec. 18, 2012 MIT article by David L. Chandler.)  Sengeh has also founded a program in Sierra Leone to encourage and foster home-grown innovation and solutions in situations where resources are limited.

Andrew Bastawrous, Research Fellow in International Eye Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, talked about his work in Kenya where he has developed an app for vision testing and diagnosis with an inexpensive device which can be clipped onto a smartphone. He demonstrated the app, Peek Vision, during his presentation.

The whole thing reminded me of Aravind, another project designed to save sight, but this one was created in India, from the Aravind Wikipedia entry (Note: Links have been removed),

Aravind Eye Care Hospital is an ophthalmological hospital with several locations in India. It was founded by Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy in 1976. Since then it has grown into a network of eye hospitals that have seen a total of nearly 32 million patients in 36 years and performed nearly 4 million eye surgeries, the majority of them being very cheap or free. The model of Aravind Eye Care hospitals has been applauded all over the world and has become a subject for numerous case studies.[1] [2][3]

My last fellow description for this session features Ayah Bdeir and the Internet of Things.  Bdeir has developed a modular approach to creating your own electronics and, today (March 17, 2014) she was introducing a new module, the Cloud Module which would allow you to create your own internet of things. (Last week I covered a webinar with Tim O’Reilly and Jim Stogdil in a March 13, 2014 posting where they discussed big data, the Internet of Things, maker culture and other components of an upcoming Solid Conference. OReilly & Stogdil discussed two options for the Internet of Things, a proprietary approach or an open  approach.) Bdeir’s modules facilitate an open approach. Bdeir will be speaking at the Solid Conference,

Ayah Bdeir is the founder and CEO of littleBits, an award-winning library of electronics dubbed “LEGOs for the iPad generation.” Bdeir is an engineer, interactive artist, and one of the leaders of the open source hardware movement. Bdeir’s career and education have centered on advancing open source hardware to make education and innovation more accessible to people around the world.

You can find out more about littleBits and the Cloud Module here.