A group of young people, employees of Johnson & Johnson, learn how to make 3D-printed prostheses at a workshop organized by the social enterprise Hands On in 2017. [Photo provided to China Daily]
A social program is pioneering the emergent and cost-effective field of 3D-printed prostheses, especially for children.
The best package 11-year-old Zhang Jingtian ever received was his 3D-printed prosthetic hand.
The courier delivered the box a day after Spring Festival in 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 wished for 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 in Google's Beijing office, started to learn about the 3D printing of prosthetics through online research about three years ago.
"The high-tech production of prostheses caught my attention," he recalls.
"The more I learned, the more excited I became."
Realizing possibilities
While conducting research, he came across Yu Yang, who was 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 Nan Nan with limb disabilities, but some parents can't afford the costs of surgery or 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 of 3D-printed prosthetics," Zhang Yan says.
"I decided to do something."
Yu introduced Zhang to a QQ chat group called Zheyi Tianshi (Angel With Broken Wings). The group had about 2,000 members, including parents, doctors and other people willing to help children with limb disabilities.
Through the group, Zhang Yan met 24-year-old Su Jiangzhou, a mechanical-engineering postgraduate student at the Beijing Institute of Technology, who has long focused on 3D printing.
Su won a prize for a 3D-printed hand he designed in a 2014 contest, but his creation wasn't that useful in application.
"I'm passionate about mechanical design and eager to see my work's value," Su says.
"I wanted to improve my design to make one that could be used."
Su later made contact with Enabling the Future, a global network sharing open-source designs of 3D-printed hands and arms.
"The designs they shared far exceeded mine at the time," Su says.
"I learned that their models hadn't been used in China. I asked for the group's support to introduce them to the country."
Zhang, Su and three friends founded Hands On in late 2015, and started using their free time to provide free 3D-printed hands for children.
Improving technology
Hands On initially relied on Enabling the Future's designs, but Su continued to do research and Hands On eventually developed its own products.
"Once we'd made progress with design, we found more families of children without prostheses and also started to contact people we'd helped before to offer them better replacements," Su recalls.
Their social enterprise has donated over 90 prostheses and helped 55 children, Su says.
It provided Nan Nan with upgraded 3D-printed hands.
"Nan Nan's palm and fingers were small, making it difficult to design a functional prosthesis for him," says Yu, who lives in Weihai in East China's Shandong province.
"Su has tried several times and has sent us three hands by now. Nan Nan couldn't hold much with the first model, but the later ones continued to improve.
"The newest hand can hold a cup using less strength than before."
The mother says she's grateful to see her boy become more outgoing and confident.
Zhang Yan, initiator and co-founder of Hands On, talks about 3D-printed prosthetic hands at a workshop. [Photo provided to China Daily]
China is home to 2.46 million children between the ages of 6 and 14 who live with disabilities, including 480,000 who have limb disabilities, according to China's Second National Sample Survey on Disability.
Indeed, 3D printing may prove a dramatic shift for the group.
"We always wanted a prosthesis for my son," says Jingtian's mother, Liu Lizhao, "but the traditional kind costs too much."
Liu, who works as a journalist in Beijing, could afford to buy one, but her son has continued to grow quickly, meaning each of his prosthetics would soon become obsolete.
"So, we decided to give Hands On a try when we heard about 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 time in his life about two months after he received his prosthetic.
"The 3D-printed hand assists my son with many daily activities and helps build his left arm's muscles," Liu says.
"It gives us hope that his disability can be entirely overcome someday, as the technology improves."
The 3D-printed hands are relatively cheap, but Hands On still struggles to cover costs.
Expanding outreach
The members ask charities for funds and also earn money by organizing corporate-volunteering workshops.
Hands On believes its team-building workshops on 3D-printed prostheses not only enable participants to act on social responsibilities but also raise public awareness about disabilities.
Equally, workshop participants have improved Hands On's products through useful suggestions.
"We have long-term cooperation with many big companies, such as Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft and Bayer," Zhang says.
Mao Qingge, senior director of consumer products at Johnson & Johnson's Asia-Pacific Innovation Center, says: "Our workshop with Hands On is a social innovation, focused on welfare and philanthropy.
"We hope our professional technicians can put their experience, ability and knowledge to work for a philanthropic cause and become volunteers, who donate not only time but also provide professional skills and technology."
In 2017, Hands On began to cooperate with the Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network, a UK-based curriculum-development organization and awarding body, to provide education programs for Chinese high school students who are interested in technology.
Yuan Yichan, CEO of ASDAN's China branch, speaks highly of its cooperation with Hands On, saying the program gives students an opportunity 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 to make 3D-printed hands.
"Students learn a lot, even if not all the prostheses they make can be used," Yuan says.
"About 10 percent of the students have gone on to found 3D-printing clubs at their schools."
About 200 kids have completed the program.
Fifty-five children from around China joined the fourth training session in Beijing in August and ASDAN has already started its fifth round of recruitment.
Also in August, Hands On won the coveted Asia-Pacific Youth Sustainable Development Goal Entrepreneurship Award at the Asia-Pacific Forum on Youth Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship organized by the United Nations Development Programme.
It was one of eight winning teams, all of which are youth-led enterprises addressing social issues, says Beniam Gebrezghi, regional civil society and youth adviser with the UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub.
Nan Nan, 9, practices holding a ball with his new 3D-printed prosthesis. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Hands On was selected from among 17 teams that showcased at the forum out of over 850 social enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region that applied or were nominated.
Gebrezghi says: "We are happy to see that young people in this region are on their way to building a beautiful future. They have the awareness to solve the social issues and share the social responsibility 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 a long way to go to make hands that can hold heavier things and are affordable to most 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 others to study and to enable more people to participate in the cause.
Over 250 volunteers have joined the communities, and 10 have mastered the technology used to design and print prostheses.
Hands On has also started to build an online community to share its technology and models.
Potential and challenge
Dai Hongge, head of engineering-simulation-technology provider Pera Global (Beijing) Co Ltd's medical department, points out that 3D printing isn't even 35 years old, so there's much to explore in terms of its medical applications.
More hospitals and rehabilitation centers have begun to introduce this technology for treatments. They can scan the patients to get their metrics and print customized personal-rehabilitation-assistant devices.
"The 3D printing of prostheses enables our doctors to treat patients more effectively and more efficiently since it streamlines production," says Zhao Liwei, director of the prosthesis and orthosis fitting department of China's National Research Center for Rehabilitation Technical Aid.
Zhao, who has worked in rehabilitation-aid technology for over two decades, sees a bright future for 3D-printed prostheses. He points out the digital models provide specific data to research and share.
He says China's technology for 3D-printed prostheses lags behind that of Western countries.
It is unlikely that 3D-printed prostheses will fully replace traditional ones in the foreseeable future because of structural issues.
"The materials used in 3D printing are still limited," Zhao says.
"The 3D printer can't deal with some complicated details very well, so the development of 3D-printed prostheses in China needs more attention and we hope more young people will devote themselves to this field."
