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In 2005, at the age of 23, Sandra Khumalo was injured in a car accident. The accident damaged her spinal cord and left her lower body paralysed.
Fast forward to 2012, Khumalo was the only South African rower at the London Paralympic Games.
She qualified to compete at the games by winning the silver medal at the final qualification regatta in Belgrade, Serbia. Khumalo went on to record an eighth overall finish at the star-studded event.
Not content with competing in one Paralympics, Khumalo ensured she qualified for the 2016 competition in Brazil. But the journey has not been all that easy.
This is why she has teamed up with the Toyota Mobility Foundation, in partnership with Nesta’s Challenge Prize Centre, to launch a $4 million global challenge to change the lives of people with lower-limb paralysis.
“As a Paralympic rower, I understand the power of the freedom to move, and how crucial technology that works with the body can be. In my sport, small changes can make a huge difference; it’s no different in everyday life. The smart technology the Mobility Unlimited Challenge is looking for could transform people’s lives,” Khumalo said.
The global challenge is looking for teams around the world to create game-changing technology that will help radically improve the mobility and independence of people with paralysis.
The mobility solutions of the future could include anything from exoskeletons to artificial intelligence and machine learning; from cloud computing to batteries.
Around the world, millions of people have lower-limb paralysis (the most common causes being strokes, spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis). There are no statistics on paralysis worldwide, but the World Health Organisation estimates there are 250 000 to 500 000 new cases of spinal cord injury globally every year.
Innovation in “smarter” mobility technology has the potential to create personal devices that are better integrated with the user’s body and the environment. But the application of this groundbreaking technology is slow due to disincentives such as small and fragmented markets, regulatory burdens, and reimbursement complexities from healthcare systems and insurers.
This can make the field unattractive to small or new entrants, and prevent innovative solutions by existing innovators from getting to market. Even though huge advances have been made in improving travel between places, innovation in everyday functionality still lags behind.
The Mobility Unlimited Challenge Prize is supported by a number of ambassadors from around the world, all of whom have experience of living with lower-limb paralysis.
Besides Khumalo, global ambassadors include: August de los Reyes, head of design at Pinterest; Yinka Shonibare MBE, Turner-prize nominated British/Nigerian artist; Indian athlete and campaigner Preethi Srinivasan; Sophie Morgan, British TV presenter; US Paralympian Tatyana McFadden; and Dr Rory A Cooper, director of the Human Engineering Research Laboratories at the University of Pittsburgh.
The project will help to bring about the full independence of people living with disability, making sure every disabled person is able to socialise and participate fully in the society. It will also shift the disabled individual’s mindset from focusing on the disability to living and enjoying what life has to offer.
Ryan Klem, director of programmes for Toyota Mobility Foundation, stated: “This is the beginning of our challenge, a three-year journey concluding in Tokyo in 2020. A journey where the greatest minds in technology, design and engineering, from every corner of the world, will compete to make the environment and society more accessible for people with lower-limb paralysis. We know we don’t have solutions yet: this challenge is about working with the people who can help develop them.”
Charlotte Macken of Nesta’s Challenge Prize Centre, commented: “Challenge prizes are a way to make innovation happen. The Mobility Unlimited Challenge is about the freedom to move. It will support innovators, creating cutting-edge personal mobility devices incorporating smart technology and intelligent systems that will transform people’s lives.”
A panel of expert judges will pick five finalists who will each receive $500 000 to take their concepts from an intelligent insight to a prototype. The Challenge winner will receive $1 million to make the device available to users. The winning concept will be unveiled in Tokyo in 2020.
The Discovery Awards will provide seed funding of $50 000 for 10 groups with promising concepts, but who might otherwise lack the resources to enter the challenge.
Interested innovators can apply online at mobilityunlimited.org.
