Pix3D Corp: Bionic Prosthesis in 3D printing

In the world, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa its so difficult have accessibility for prosthesis for upper limbs, for example in Perú, Chile, Colombia, Brasil, México didn’t access to upper limbs prosthesis because the solutions in the world was very expensive and in the Latin America market is so difficult find resources to cover that’s costs, in Africa is the same situation. In Perú exist more than 400 000 people who need a prosthesis for upper limbs and the average of amputees in the principal city is 80 per month, in Latin America the average of people who need a prosthesis is 9 million and, in the world, the average is more than 130 million people who need an upper limb prosthesis. This population have the resilience to adaptive their activities without an upper limb but in all of this situation the prosthesis is a tool which help them to develop and re incorporated to the society. 

We create different designs and methodology (3D Model thinking) to manufacture high quality and low-cost bionic prosthesis (mechanical and myoelectric) with high quality and functionality. We work this solution centered in the feedback of our users and thinking in the daily activities and specific functions everyone of them has. In addition, we create a process method which we only need in every country or continent train people to take the fitting and with these data we design the prosthesis and deliver the design to a local hub for printing reducing with that the costs of transportations and movement. All of that we have with 3d printing technology and microcontrollers.

The mechanical prosthesis (Kpix) uses the movement of one articulation (the wrist (Kpix I) or the elbow (Kpix II) ) and the myoelectrical prosthesis (Pixtronic) uses the contraction of the muscle (bicep, tricep or pectoral) the difference of the number in every prosthesis depend of the place of amputee if the amputation is after the wrist (in the palm) we recommend Kpix I, if the amputee was in the forearm (Kpix or Pixtronic II) if was upper the elbow (Pixtronic III) and in the shoulder (Pixtronic IV or V) for the amputee upper the elbow we incorporate in the prosthesis a mechanical elbow to guarantee the correct functionality and also the rotation of the arm.

With all of that we have the possibility to expand the offer of prosthesis with low cost and generate opportunities for people with disability and in addition capacitate local people and working with private and public institutions to do more accessible these technology in all the world for the people who need one of the and reincorporate them in the society.

The prosthesis technology have a expensive cost in all the world for this reason is very difficult consider acquire one, less in developing countries, this reduce the interest in the global solutions to attend in this countries and where they attended the cost is more expensive (because some times is necessary travel to other continent or maybe wait between 2 or 3 years to receive the prosthesis) 

For example in Perú if you want a complete arm prosthesis you need to travel to France to acquire one and then wait more than 3 years to obtain the prosthesis if the public insurance attended you needed maybe you have to wait more than 6 years to receive an only esthetic prosthesis. In Chile don't exist offer of prosthesis for upper limbs and the people only have one opportunity to acquire one with Teleton (Non Profit organization to help people with disabilities), but for the expensive costs Teleton only provide of 1 or 2 prosthesis  (for upper limbs) per year. 

This is the real life of the countries in Latin America for people who need upper limbs prosthesis, (in Latin America the number of people who need one of these is 9 million) and if is true them adaptive to do the most of daily activities they need, the use of a prosthesis help to them in 3 principal objectives: Recover the correct body posture, Recover the autonomy and recover the self-esteem and self-perception

in all the cases we attended in this years we have the possibility to see how our users recover the work, recover the self esteem, recover the smile and the motivation to continue in the school or university but the most impact moment for us is when one woman user said us: "After the accident this is the first time in 10 years i want to see me in a mirror, do you have one?" and when she saw her in the mirror she smile and cry at the same time and only said us thanks. 

In the world exist different movements and organizations which work with 3d printing upper limbs prosthesis and we are so happy of that but this organizations have a limited, they worked with open source design and these desing its not possible to fitting exactly for every user, for these reason the most of time these prosthesis were to big and for this the users stop to use them. 

This is the difference of Pixed we work in prosthesis and designs to adaptive every device for every users consider the daily and specific activities of our users and the most important we work thinking in the self perception of every people who use an upper limb Pixed prosthesis. 

This response I do in personal form, I'm the CEO of Pixed Ricardo Rodríguez and I want to talk about the reason for what started Pixed.

Pixed start for personal motivation, my uncle a person very close to me, had a disability (physical and cognitive) and I viewed all the discrimination he had in his life since I was a child when i was growing up and started the university I wanted to do something to protect my uncle but he died before I did something. in this moment I understood more people are discriminate for the disability like my uncle and I start to investigate about the numbers and statistics of people with disabilities in Perú and surprise for me Perú have the 10% of the population with disabilities and the only type of disability which don't have attention was the disability in upper limbs, at this moment I activate my purpose to put my knowledge in work in a solution for this people (and indirectly for my uncle) 

for this, in Pixed I don't want only the best talent for the company we want the best people with good talents. we have a program of sensibilization for all the collaborators and the C - Team now is people involved with the purpose. we not only take the fitting we talk with the users, we know every user, we understand the need of every one of them, we know about the fears they have about the prosthesis. 

we have more than 43 different designs the first 2 designs was the starter but the other 41 was inspired by the feedback of the users because we talk with them.

we have an integral adaptive program where the psychologist talks with the users and guarantees the emotional component about the device and our technical team recovers the opinion about the device. 

In addition, we have the program Pixed Evolution, a program where we select different users to know about them and work together to create new solutions based on their feedback.

Now we attended 

• more than 150 people directly with a prosthesis
• More than 400 People attended (families of our users) to generate capacitation about the disability and how to empower them. 
• More than 30000 people sensibility about the inclusion of people with disability. 
• 26 adults who recover their works
• 22 children who reincorporate into the school 
• more than 15 teenagers who recover the motivation to start university or technical studies. 

In Pixed we have two big challenges: The market because we are very close with our users but we need the people and the institutions to know more about us. And the financial part because technology development requires more investment but, most importantly, requires more effective management of the resources.

that's the reason we apply to solve, for us is more important is to solve these challenges and use that to prepare to raise financing. 

Upper limb prostheses with 3d printing exist maybe 9 years ago, and Pixed exist 8 years ago, very nearly. the difference between Pixed is two: 

1) The Designs: the open source solution only considers mechanical solutions, for forearm and wrist disarticulation and works with the resize of the design. In Pixed we have parametrical designs that we modifier for every user to adjust for a correctly fitting and we have solutions for all the amputees in the upper limbs, in the palm, in the wrist, in the forearm, in the elbow, in the arm, and in the shoulder, oll they consider the functionality of the user and consider mechanical and myoelectrical devices.

2) The methodology: we incorporate a process to fitting correctly every user and generate the exact device, but the most important is the integral program we have because this program involves doctors, engineers, sellers, and psychologists all of them working together with the user to realize a better adaptation to the device. 

For the next year: the objective is to start working with more private insurance, now we working with two in Perú and starting negotiations with one in Chile for the next year the idea is to work with all the private insurance in Perú and most important in Chile.

In addition for the next year, we planning an event series about our technology in hospitals (Public) and with public institutions to promote the use of this technology 

impact: deliver more than 100 prostheses and reincorporated more than 50 people to work or school

in the next 5 years: 

working with the license model in Latin America and North America. introduce the need for this technology in public statements, 

impact: deliver more than 2000 prostheses and reincorporated more than 1000 people to work or school

in our integral program, we incorporated the measure of goals for our users. 

we monitor every user one time per month for the first 6 months and then every quarter in this monitoring we resolve a form with the next OKRs : 

feeling of the user

activities they do

new activities they learn or explore

economic situation 

if the prosthesis helps to acquire work

if the prosthesis helps to increase income. 

if they have the motivation to study or reincorporate into the school. 

how many times they reduce their activities thanks to the device. 

What other functionality do they want in the device? 

In addition, we measure our OKRs: 

How many people did we attend vs how many people we delivered prostheses to?

What are the stoppers to acquiring a prosthesis? 

how many times has every user decided to acquire a prosthesis

how much time do we take to attend to every user? 

how much time we take in the process of every user. 

how many doctors we visited to demonstrate the technology 

how the leader of institutions connect every month 

• Access to functional prosthetic technologies worldwide at affordable prices.
• New opportunities for people with disabilities.

• Access to upper extremity prostheses in Latin America and Africa.
• Reduction of the unemployment rate of people with disabilities.

• Incorporation of locally manufactured prosthetic devices in public and private insurance.
• Greater number of professionals trained for local manufacturing of prosthetic devices
• Registration and training of companies to hire people with disabilities.
• Training and orientation of people with disabilities to face selection processes.

• Linking with health institutions and doctors to demonstrate the value of the prosthesis
• Validation of the use of prostheses with health institutions and doctors
• Awareness and dissemination of the importance of hiring people with disabilities.

• Events and training for doctors and health professionals on Pixed prosthetic technologies. If the result is adequate, they will be encouraged to work and test the technology.
• Participation in health events so that people can learn more about the product.
• Participation with public institutions to publicize the technology.

The main technologies involved are 3D design and printing, registration of body signals, photogrammetry or image data acquisition, microcontroller programming, and IoT development to record the correct operation of each of the devices.

As a team and as a company we have a broad commitment to equity, inclusion, and diversity, from the conformation of the founders, and the conformation of directories, to our work policies and codes of ethics where respect for each of our collaborators and Users is strongly established as part of the DNA, so over the years we have incorporated people with disabilities, LGTBQ+ people into the team, seeking to generate inclusive workspaces.

We attended 3 type of client: 1) Directly the people who need a prosthesis 2) institutions like private and public insurance, governments, NGO's. 3) People or institutions who want to manufacture ad distribute prosthesis. Our beneficiaries are the people who need a prosthesis. 

Our principal value proposition is the offer of technology for people who need a prosthesis in different countries where actually is not possible acquire one but with a low cost (and high quality). 

Other value proposition very important for all the segments are the integral accompaniment to guarantee the adaption of the prosthesis. 

for the groups 2 and 3 is very important the success of working with prosthesis with local manufacturing and reduce the time to deliver (for our beneficiaries and clients in the segment 1, is important too) 

For the clients in the segment 1) we have the following channels: the website, social media and the segments 2) and 3) 

and for the segments 2) and 3) we working directly with activations and personal presentations.

to obtain more traction our principal activities are the interviews in differents public media and the participation in differents events or congress 

our principal stakeholders now are the Peruvian Society of Hand surgery and microsurgery, CONADIS (Consejo nacional de Discapacidad, National disability institution of Perú), RIMAC (Private insurance), in addition we want to involved more public institution and NGOs 

about our incomes and outcomes our model consider two parts: 

Attention Center: in this place we work with specif staff only to fitting, test the product and attend the beneficiaries (or clients). Now we have only one attention center (Lima . Perú) and starting a pilot in other city (Arequipa - Perú) and in other country (Santiago - Chile),  in the future the idea is working this model like license model.

Production Center: In this places we centered the production of the prosthesis to deliver for all the attention center, in this place we need design and technical staff and psychologist to attend the users. In addition is needed the 3d printing machines and tools because here is manufacturing all the products. Now we have a Production Center  (Lima - Perú) to attend Perú and Chile but in the future we planning put one production center like nodes in specif countries (this model is working by Pixed) 

the idea is democratize the access of prosthesis to all the people who need one and provide of different and high quality technology for all these people and involve the private and public institutions in generate new opportunities for people with disabilities.

in the short time we sell directly the prosthesis, for the people who need one, and private insurance. 

in the short and middle time we want to raise investment capital to start the expansion to other countries in Latin America and in the long time we want to continue with this model but in addition sell to governments and NGO's. 

Our constant evaluation of indicators has allowed us to evaluate the main stoppers of our users when purchasing a device. This has allowed us to pivot properly when there have been difficult moments or situations, for example in Peru there was an economic crisis as a result of a political crisis in 2022, in November we were able to pivot and migrate to a quota model that allowed us to recover the number of users and now in 2023 maintain a greater number of them. Having gone from 1 user per month in history to currently having 7 serviced monthly.

In addition to that, our work with health institutions has led us to have the recognition of the Peruvian Society of hand surgery and Microsurgery for the work we have been doing at the prosthesis level.

Concerning financing, we have received financing from the Ministry of Production of Peru, from pro innóvate (also from the state), from Concytec (National Technology Council), from IKEA, from the Wiese Foundation, and the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) and finally recognition of Enable the Future as the first designers of a 3D printed bionic full denture.