The team at Cure Bionics, a Tunisian start-up developing bionic artificial limbs, had just finished making a promotional video featuring a 15-year-old girl called Khawla.
“We were letting her watch and listen to her interview and she brought up both her hands – one biological, the other prosthetic – to close her ears at the same time and said, ‘Aw no, I don’t want to hear my voice!’” says Mohamed Dhaouafi, the company’s 28-year-old CEO and founder and a recent runner up in the Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge. Although she was only wearing a prototype of the product, her ability to perform such a simple action, which had been impossible since birth, left Dhaouafi overwhelmed by emotion: “It made all our efforts of the past two years worth it.”
Dhaouafi had always wanted to launch a socially driven business but, he acknowledges, his route to becoming an engineer was not straightforward. “I failed my first attempt to get into engineering school and it did make me question my purpose,” he recalls. But, like any entrepreneur, he was never going to stop at the first hurdle and after his second successful attempt at the exams he joined Ecole Nationale d’Ingénieurs de Sousse, Tunisia’s national engineering school. But it was while participating in a university challenge that he discovered what he describes as his purpose in life.
His team was trying to develop an online marketplace for medical devices when he learned that a teammate’s cousin, who had been born without upper limbs, could not afford prosthetics.
I started to do some deeper research and discovered that there are 30 million limbless people around the world and only 5% of those are fitted with prosthetics,” Dhaouafi told The Brilliant.
The data also showed that 70% of people with a prosthetic limb are dissatisfied with it – and their trials do not end there. Stigma and mobility issues make it difficult for people with limb differences to fully enjoy life but that is only part of the story. According to data from the United Nations and World Health Organization, 95% of people without limbs never finish primary school, and 90% of adults affected in this way in developing countries are unemployed.
“It’s more than just a limb – this is about poverty, access to education and access to healthcare,” Dhaouafi says. “It’s a huge problem, and among the worst affected are children.” Currently, the solutions can cost anything from $10,000 to $15,000 up to $100,000 for the most advanced models – and that’s per limb. Children with limb differences will need at least 10 replacement limbs by the time they reach the age of 20, putting prosthetics well out of reach for many families. At about $2,500 each, the prosthetic bionic limbs developed by Cure Bionics come in at a fraction of the cost of the usual options.
Electrifying innovation
Since officially launching in 2018, Cure Bionics has been working on a product that has evolved from a mechanical prosthetic solution into a battery-powered and bionic one that can be 3D printed. “Muscle sensors are applied to the skin without surgical intervention and these are able to detect the electrical activity of muscles and respond in a similar way to a real limb,” Dhaouafi says, explaining how it works.
As easy to assemble as Lego, the limbs are fitted with an adjustable socket, because “children grow fast”. They’re also fully customisable. “If it is Halloween, and you want a superhero arm for a party, it is simply a matter of you designing a cover online and getting it,” Dhaouafi says.
The product is also equipped with a solar and wireless charger. Because a core focus of Cure Bionics is to become the leading supplier of bionic limbs primarily in Africa and the Middle East, this is crucial. In Africa, for example, according to non-profit public policy organisation Brookings, just 43% of people have access to the electricity grid compared to 87% globally.
The prosthetic limb innovation is just one part of Dhaouafi’s plan. Inspired by video games and films such as Spiderman, Cure Bionics has also developed a virtual reality gaming solution allowing amputees to meet their doctors online in their own home, and to play games that simulate therapeutic exercises.
“Often people are traumatised by the experience of losing a limb and this [gaming solution] can help to make a stressful experience fun and motivational,” Dhaouafi says. It will also help the team to improve the prosthetic product, as the technology continuously learns and adapts to users. Going further still, Cure Bionics “also wants to build a community, a kind of support network around the world”.
Staying on track
Due to a combination of self-funding, grants and donations, Cure Bionics’ prosthetic product will be ready to go to market in the next few weeks. However, scaling this social enterprise remains an ongoing challenge. The recent $75,000 cash prize won in the Cisco competition will help purchase additional 3D printers and scanners and enable more people to benefit from the technology, but longer-term investment will be needed. Dhaouafi, however, is clear that “it must be the right fit”.
Other challenges include the supply chain and issues exacerbated by COVID-19. Many of the products’ parts – such as biocompatible 3D filaments, specialist screws and electronic processors – are shipped to Tunisia from other parts of the world, and most freight movements have been affected by the pandemic. In addition, there are rigorous rules and regulations applied to the manufacture of medical equipment and securing approvals can take time. In the meantime, the innovative start-up is working hard to secure patents and build partnerships in countries throughout the world.
“We are now ready for the market, but it took us two and a half years to develop the product we have now,” says Dhaouafi, who admits that, without the limitations of finance, the supply chain and bureaucracy, it could have taken less than half that time.
Spurred on to make a difference and in order to better run his company, he went on to complete a master’s degree in the management of non-governmental organisations at Tunis Business School and ESSEC Tunis, which helped him learn more about management, finance and fundraising.
In spite of the challenges he remains committed to the development process. As one of 200 Obama Foundation Leaders in Africa, he remembers words of advice offered by the former US president in a recent Zoom meeting. Barack Obama was asked how he had found the strength to be a global leader, and how he had coped with the pressure.
“He told us that if you are involved in something bigger than yourself then if you focus on the short term you will always be disappointed. You will never reach your goals. Instead, think and plan long term,” Dhaouafi says.
Cure Bionics is here for the long term and the company’s entrepreneurial founder is committed to getting people with limb differences on the move – safely, affordably and spontaneously.
“Science and technology make it possible not just to fix disabilities but to extend the capabilities and capacities of humans to overcome biological limits,” Dhaouafi says. And doing exactly that for kids such as Khawla is exactly what keeps this Tunisian innovator an entrepreneur inspired for the long term .
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