Disney is making dreams come true and how! Young kids with amputations will soon get superhero prosthetics they can call their own, some of them being the iconic arms of Iron Man and Elsa of the Frozen fame. Even a lightsaber prosthetic is in the works straight from the world of Star Wars.
The credit for this goes to a UK-based company known as Open Bionics, a start-up venture that's a part of Disney's Techstars Accelerator program. Open Bionics is focusing on making low-cost 3D printed prosthetic arms with an aim to appeal to kids with amputations and change the way they make these devices an integral part of their lives.
According to Joel Gibbard, CEO of Open Bionics, "The power of these prosthetics is that the public perception is completely different. All of a sudden they're not being asked how they lost their hand, they're being asked where they got their cool robot hand, how does it feel, and how does it work? What might have been perceived as their greatest weakness is seen as their greatest strength."
It was not long ago when we saw Robert Downey Jr, who plays Marvel's Iron Man on the big screen, successfully initiating a trend where kids can actually welcome such heroic prosthetics and feel connected with the world. RDJ himself gave a custom-made Iron Man prosthetic to a 7-year-old:
All hail these little Avengers!
