MIT meets cutting-edge grassroots technology

Thursday March 20, 2008,

1 min Read

D R Mehta is a remarkable Indian social entrepreneur. He is the founder of the Jaipur Foot Organization (JFO) or the(BMVSS), an organization which has developed the most functional limb technology in the world, and made a constantly made an effort to make it available at a low-cost. According to a study done by researchers at University of Michigan, a prosthetic leg in the US costs about US$ 8,000, while the jaipur foot costs about US$ 30. We had earlier written in this space about BMVSS winning the Tech Museum awards.

We learn from NGO Post that a group of MIT students want to make the technology more accessible:

A group of students at MIT have come up with a better design for this prosthetic that is hand powered and does not require electricity. This is crucial in further cutting production costs and taking the Jaipur Foot to remote areas where the lack of power supply is a major hinderance.