Kate Allan
Designing a children’s prosthetic that grows with the user
Project
ExpHand Prosthetics
URL
Location
East Midlands
Theme
Health
Designing a children’s prosthetic that grows with the user
After meeting a young girl in need of a prosthetic, Kate Allan was inspired to design a product suitable for the global market by using additive manufacturing. At the age of 22 she started her medical company ExpHand, an affordable prosthetic designed with the needs of children in mind. Manufactured using lightweight and customisable parts, it can grow with the patient and is easy to repair.
And while the lack of suitable child prosthetics is a problem in the UK, across the world 90% of people don’t have any access to this life changing technology, due to lack of doctors and expensive products. The ExpHand is designed to reach people in developing countries as well as countries such as the UK.
Kate has been successfully running ExpHand Prosthetics for the past 4 years and has received multiple awards and grants to enable her to develop the business. In 2023 she will launch the first model in the UK while developing its successor and trialling an international distributed manufacturing model.
Kate sees ExpHand as a genuine innovation; cheaper to produce and aimed at a much neglected market she is ready to disrupt the prosthetics market and bring independence to children across the world.