A hands on enterprise

The best package 11-year-old Zhang Jingtian ever receivedwas his 3D-printed prosthetic hand.

The courier delivered the box a day after Spring Festivalin 2017.

"I've got my hand!" he yelled, repeatedly,after his mother helped him open it.

Zhang, who was born without a left hand, had long wishedfor a prosthesis, but it had always been too expensive.

However, his prosthetic came from the social enterprise,Hands On.

The group's founder, 30-year-old Zhang Yan, who works inGoogle's Beijing office, started to learn about the 3D printing of prostheticsthrough online research about three years ago.

"The high-tech production of prostheses caught myattention," he recalls.

"The more I learned, the more excited Ibecame."

Realizing possibilities

While conducting research, he came across Yu Yang, whowas raising money to produce a 3D-printed prosthesis for her son, Nan Nan,who's now 9 years old.

Yu told Zhang Yan that China has many children like NanNan with limb disabilities, but some parents can't afford the costs of surgeryor prostheses.

Traditional prosthetic hands cost at least 150,000 yuan($21,000), but 3D-printed hands are about 1,000 yuan.

"The huge price gap made me realize the value of3D-printed prosthetics," Zhang Yan says.

"I decided to do something."

Yu introduced Zhang to a QQ chat group called ZheyiTianshi (Angel With Broken Wings). The group had about 2,000 members, includingparents, doctors and other people willing to help children with limbdisabilities.

Through the group, Zhang Yan met 24-year-old SuJiangzhou, a mechanical-engineering postgraduate student at the BeijingInstitute of Technology, who has long focused on 3D printing.

Su won a prize for a 3D-printed hand he designed in a2014 contest, but his creation wasn't that useful in application.

"I'm passionate about mechanical design and eager tosee my work's value," Su says.

"I wanted to improve my design to make one thatcould be used."

Su later made contact with Enabling the Future, a globalnetwork sharing open-source designs of 3D-printed hands and arms.

"The designs they shared far exceeded mine at thetime," Su says.

"I learned that their models hadn't been used inChina. I asked for the group's support to introduce them to the country."

Zhang, Su and three friends founded Hands On in late2015, and started using their free time to provide free 3D-printed hands forchildren.

Improving technology

Hands On initially relied on Enabling the Future'sdesigns, but Su continued to do research and Hands On eventually developed itsown products.

"Once we'd made progress with design, we found morefamilies of children without prostheses and also started to contact people we'dhelped before to offer them better replacements," Su recalls.

Their social enterprise has donated over 90 prosthesesand helped 55 children, Su says.

It provided Nan Nan with upgraded 3D-printed hands.

"Nan Nan's palm and fingers were small, making itdifficult to design a functional prosthesis for him," says Yu, who livesin Weihai in East China's Shandong province.

"Su has tried several times and has sent us threehands by now. Nan Nan couldn't hold much with the first model, but the laterones continued to improve.

"The newest hand can hold a cup using less strengththan before."

The mother says she's grateful to see her boy become moreoutgoing and confident.

China is home to 2.46 million children between the agesof 6 and 14 who live with disabilities, including 480,000 who have limbdisabilities, according to China's Second National Sample Survey on Disability.

Indeed, 3D printing may prove a dramatic shift for thegroup.

"We always wanted a prosthesis for my son,"says Jingtian's mother, Liu Lizhao, "but the traditional kind costs toomuch."

Liu, who works as a journalist in Beijing, could affordto buy one, but her son has continued to grow quickly, meaning each of hisprosthetics would soon become obsolete.

"So, we decided to give Hands On a try when we heardabout it in 2016," she says.

Su designed the model based on the boy's information.

Jingtian held a cup with his left hand for the first timein his life about two months after he received his prosthetic.

"The 3D-printed hand assists my son with many dailyactivities and helps build his left arm's muscles," Liu says.

"It gives us hope that his disability can beentirely overcome someday, as the technology improves."

The 3D-printed hands are relatively cheap, but Hands Onstill struggles to cover costs.

Expanding outreach

The members ask charities for funds and also earn moneyby organizing corporate-volunteering workshops.

Hands On believes its team-building workshops on3D-printed prostheses not only enable participants to act on social responsibilitiesbut also raise public awareness about disabilities.

Equally, workshop participants have improved Hands On'sproducts through useful suggestions.

"We have long-term cooperation with many bigcompanies, such as Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft and Bayer," Zhangsays.

Mao Qingge, senior director of consumer products atJohnson & Johnson's Asia-Pacific Innovation Center, says: "Ourworkshop with Hands On is a social innovation, focused on welfare andphilanthropy.

"We hope our professional technicians can put theirexperience, ability and knowledge to work for a philanthropic cause and becomevolunteers, who donate not only time but also provide professional skills andtechnology."

In 2017, Hands On began to cooperate with the AwardScheme Development and Accreditation Network, a UK-based curriculum-developmentorganization and awarding body, to provide education programs for Chinese highschool students who are interested in technology.

Yuan Yichan, CEO of ASDAN's China branch, speaks highlyof its cooperation with Hands On, saying the program gives students anopportunity to solve social problems.

Students in the program form groups of three to five.They take online courses about 3D printing and then join a weeklong camp tomake 3D-printed hands.

"Students learn a lot, even if not all theprostheses they make can be used," Yuan says.

"About 10 percent of the students have gone on tofound 3D-printing clubs at their schools."

About 200 kids have completed the program.

Fifty-five children from around China joined the fourthtraining session in Beijing in August and ASDAN has already started its fifthround of recruitment.

Also in August, Hands On won the coveted Asia-PacificYouth Sustainable Development Goal Entrepreneurship Award at the Asia-PacificForum on Youth Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship organized by theUnited Nations Development Programme.

It was one of eight winning teams, all of which areyouth-led enterprises addressing social issues, says Beniam Gebrezghi, regionalcivil society and youth adviser with the UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub.

Hands On was selected from among 17 teams that showcasedat the forum out of over 850 social enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region thatapplied or were nominated.

Gebrezghi says: "We are happy to see that youngpeople in this region are on their way to building a beautiful future. Theyhave the awareness to solve the social issues and share the socialresponsibility to make sure that no one is left behind."

Zhang Yan says: "We cherish the UNDP's recognition.Our prostheses can only hold things lighter than 1 kilogram. We still have along way to go to make hands that can hold heavier things and are affordable tomost families, especially in rural areas."

Hands On has built many volunteer communities in Beijing,Shanghai and Guangzhou in the past two years to provide its models for othersto study and to enable more people to participate in the cause.

Over 250 volunteers have joined the communities, and 10have mastered the technology used to design and print prostheses.

Hands On has also started to build an online community toshare its technology and models.

Potential and challenge

Dai Hongge, head of engineering-simulation-technologyprovider Pera Global (Beijing) Co Ltd's medical department, points out that 3Dprinting isn't even 35 years old, so there's much to explore in terms of itsmedical applications.

More hospitals and rehabilitation centers have begun tointroduce this technology for treatments. They can scan the patients to gettheir metrics and print customized personal-rehabilitation-assistant devices.

"The 3D printing of prostheses enables our doctorsto treat patients more effectively and more efficiently since it streamlinesproduction," says Zhao Liwei, director of the prosthesis and orthosisfitting department of China's National Research Center for RehabilitationTechnical Aid.

Zhao, who has worked in rehabilitation-aid technology forover two decades, sees a bright future for 3D-printed prostheses. He points outthe digital models provide specific data to research and share.

He says China's technology for 3D-printed prostheses lagsbehind that of Western countries.

It is unlikely that 3D-printed prostheses will fullyreplace traditional ones in the foreseeable future because of structuralissues.

"The materials used in 3D printing are stilllimited," Zhao says.

"The 3D printer can't deal with some complicateddetails very well, so the development of 3D-printed prostheses in China needsmore attention and we hope more young people will devote themselves to thisfield."

本文原載于China Daily 2018年10月17日第17版詳情請見https://enapp.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201810/17/AP5bc67fc0a31047554286fc1c.html?from=groupmessage&isappinstalled=0