Prosthetists Meet 3D Printers – Press Release

Prosthetists Meet 3D Printers:
Mainstreaming Open Source 3D Printed Prosthetics for Underserved Populations
Sunday – September 28, 2014
Johns Hopkins Hospital – Baltimore MD.

Crowd-sourced collaborative innovation is changing the face of modern medicine. e-NABLE, a global online community of humanitarian volunteers is leading the way by designing, building and disseminating inexpensive functional 3D printed prosthetics.

• e-NABLE 3D printed prosthetic hands cost approximately $50 compared to traditional devices priced in the thousands of dollars.
• Children often had to wait until they were fully grown in order to receive their first prosthetic;
• Providing affordable devices to children with upper-limb differences, including missing fingers – increases opportunities for play and interaction with the world around them.
• As children grow, new affordable custom prosthetics can be easily 3D printed for them.

Come join the e-NABLE organization and thought leaders in medicine, industry and public policy for a ground-breaking, industry-defining event at Johns Hopkins Hospital that will also include the delivery of donated prosthetic devices to children with upper limb differences.

e-NABLE will also unveil it’s new e-NABLE 2.0 Hand – developed by Ivan Owen, Peter Binkley and Frankie Flood – the world’s first crowd-sourced, crowd-developed prosthetic, the 2.0 incorporates the collective intelligence, learning and experiences of e-NABLE’s community.

“e-NABLE’s collaborative approach to design and democratization of 3D-printed prostheses could significantly improve millions of lives worldwide. Now is the time to bring these technologies and practices into mainstream medicine.”  – Dr. Albert Chi (Trauma surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Lieutenant Commander in the US Naval Reserve and world-renowned researcher on state-of-the-art prosthetics, who will be one of the speakers at the event.)

Help us bring 21st Century technologies, practices and philosphies to prosthetists, parents and patients. Help us develop enlightened policy recommendations and strategies in advance of FDA regulatory workshops in October.

Details and tickets for this event are available at http://enabling3dpp2014.sched.org.

BACKGROUNDER

A groundbreaking conference entitled “Prosthetists Meets 3D Printers: Mainstreaming Open Source 3D Printed Prosthetics for Underserved Populations” will be held on September 28, 2014 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

The meeting will bring e-NABLE’s pioneering 21st-century technologies, practices and philosophies to prosthetists, policy makers, parents and patients and set the stage for widespread adoption by professionals worldwide.

e-NABLE founder, Jon Schull of Rochester Institute of Technology observed, “This should be a watershed event for the prosthetics and 3D-printing industries as well as for volunteers, academics and policy-makers helping to democratize access and accelerate innovation in prosthetics and humanitarian technological collaboration.”

The conference is being organized and sponsored by e-NABLE – an international online community of volunteers, designing inexpensive 3D-printed hands and arms to children – as well as thought-leading organizations in academia and industry.

The event itself is designed to facilitate collaboration and early-adoption among pioneering parents and prosthetists who can now download free digital 3D models from the internet and then use 3D printers to produce inexpensive mechanical hands that have been compared favorably to commercial prostheses costing $30,000-$50,000. It will provide a forum for discussing regulatory and policy issues that will be the subject of the first ever Federal Drug Administration Public Workshop in Washington DC on Additive Manufacturing of Medical Devices, October 8th-9th, 2014.

This conference will set the stage for needs-assessment and alliance-building  between medical and helping professionals, parents and recipients and for aid workers in war-torn regions, disasters zones and impoverished communities around the world who need inexpensive and robust solutions on a large scale.

The conference will take place in the Turner Auditorium Concourse at Johns Hopkins and will begin with presentations by medical and industry leaders and innovators as well as parents and policy analysts. In the afternoon, prosthetists and parents will attend hands-on workshops in which they will learn how to print and assemble 3D printed prosthetic hands themselves. At the end of the day, children with upper limb differences will get to try on newly-donated 3D printed hand devices for the first time and provide feedback and guidance to the attendees.
In the evening, an un-conference will set the stage for subsequent initiatives and collaborations among medical professionals, industry leaders, policy analysts, aid workers and e-NABLE.

Thanks to generous sponsorships, registration will be free for families with a child receiving a device as well as Veterans and Wounded Warriors. Registration will be inexpensive for professionals who will also be able to receive Continuing Education Credit from Johns Hopkins University.

This event is open to the public. Tickets can be purchased at http:enabling3dpp2014.sched.org/

Visit the e-NABLE website for more photos and stories of hands being build and children being helped. www.enablingthefuture.org

Do you have any questions for us?
Contact e-NABLE volunteers, Melina, Jen and Joris at enablepressinfo@gmail.com for more information!