Project

Mand.ro - an affordable, fully-functional prosthetic hand maker

Project Summary

Mand.ro makes low-cost myoelectric prosthetic hands with the one goal, “There should not be anyone unable to use a fully-functional prosthetic hand due to the lack of money.” By achieving this, Mand.ro wants to enable quality lives for upper-limb amputees and create better world with them.

Legacy myoelectric prosthetic hands are neither affordable in terms of the retail price (40K USD), nor appropriate in terms of their maintenance (due to long-distance shipping and handling for fixing parts). To solve these problems, Mand.ro developed a low-cost myoelectric prosthetic hand called “Mandro Hand”, which costs only the amount of a smartphone. The “Mandro Hand” is based on 3D printing and scanning technologies with yet-another mechanical parts and electronic circuits developed by Mand.ro, while it costs around ~200 USD with 24 hours of assembly/processing effort. Since the mechanical parts and circuits are open-sourced, so that trained people can easily make and repair their hands if necessary.

Business Model

We, 'Mand.ro', a 'Low-cost Prosthetic Hand Maker' provide a fully functional prosthetic hands for people with below and above-elbow amputations.

We look for local partners for distribution, customization, and maintenance of prosthetic hands. We can provide our devices and solutions with extremely low-cost than ever before.

Here are our business details.
- Price: $999 (the terminal device - 'hand' cost)
- Solutions (w/ price):
1) affordable muscle sensor with dry-electrode
2) yet-another charger cradle for prosthetic hand
3) low-cost, customized below-elbow socket (with 3D process)
4) low-cost, customized above-elbow socket (with functioning elbow joint, with 3D process)

Main Achievements

Technologies:
- World-first, low-cost, 3D-printed myoelectric prosthetic hand in a market
- More than 100 actual users served with our product as of January 2018
- Developed full-stack of technologies related to prosthetic devices
(from terminal devices, sockets, electronics, sensors, chargers, cradles, gloves, etc.)

Distributions:
- Korea : more than 300 hands distributed as both educational purpose and actual use (60 users)
- Jordan (Middle East) : more than 150 hands distributed for war-wounded people (with support from KOICA)
- Tanzania (Africa) : just started a pilot distribution with SwissLimbs (Swiss, Not-for-profit organization)