Plastic fingers controlled by the arm muscles, easy-to-replace 3D printed parts, solar-powered charging. Engineers are developing a bionic hand adapted to the needs of the disabled, in Tunisia and elsewhere on the African continent.

Mohamed Dhaouafi, 28, designed his first prototype for a university project when he was studying at the National Engineering School in Sousse (east coast). “We had planned to create a distribution platform for pharmaceuticals, he recalls. But one member of the team had a cousin born without a hand, whose parents could not invest in prostheses, especially since she was still growing. Suddenly, we decided to embark on the design of a hand”.

Freshly graduated, Mr. Dhaouafi launched his start-up Cure Bionics in 2017 in a room with his parents, when many classmates chose to emigrate, attracted by better salaries and a taste for elsewhere. “I wanted to prove that I could do it but also make history, change people’s lives,” explains the young Tunisian, now based in a business incubator backed by his university.

Artificial intelligence

Several scholarships won during competitions and a few tens of thousands of USD in investments from an American company enabled it to recruit four engineers. Each in front of their computer screen, they draw, code or test a remote-controlled hand.

Sensors on the human arm detect muscle movements, the software interprets them to transmit instructions to the artificial hand, equipped with an articulated wrist and four fingers driven by these muscle impulses. The thumb, with mechanical articulation, must be put in position manually.

Artificial intelligence makes it possible to recognize the muscular impulses of complex movements, in order to facilitate the use of the prosthesis. Cure Bionics hopes to market its first prostheses within a few months, first in Tunisia and then in several countries on the African continent where more than three-quarters of people in need of technical assistance do not have access to them, according to the World Organization. of health.

“The goal is to be financially accessible but also geographically”, explains the young entrepreneur, who was among the innovators under 35 distinguished in 2019 by the MIT Technology Review.

The start-up wants to produce as close as possible to users, with local technicians to take the measures.

Considered price: $ 2,000 to $ 3,000 per hand. Although high, it is several times lower than that of bionic prostheses imported from Europe.

The start-up wants to produce as close as possible to users, with local technicians to take measurements and, thanks to its software, to 3D print prostheses adapted to each morphology on site. “A prosthesis imported today means weeks or even months of waiting for the purchase, and for each repair,” said Mr. Dhaouafi.

Lack of visionaries

The Cure Bionics hand consists of interlocking parts, making it easy to replace a damaged or undersized part for growing children. Its battery is rechargeable by solar energy, for regions without electricity. It can also be personalized, such as a fashion accessory or ” superhero outfit”.

3D printing, used by ingenious do-it-yourselfers who made rudimentary mechanical hands in the early 2010s, is gaining ground in the manufacture of prostheses. “The technology is still in its infancy but a major change is underway,” said Jerry Evans, boss of Canadian non-profit company Nia Technologies,

“The less developed countries will probably go directly from archaic techniques to these technologies, which are much less expensive and which save precious time for too few practitioners, ” he assures us.

But 3D printing is not a magic solution, warns Evans. Medical know-how remains necessary to create truly functional prostheses.

Mohamed Dhaouafi is worried about the difficulties to innovate in Tunisia, despite improvements made by law on start-ups in 2018: inability to order parts on international trade platforms (administrative and banking constraints), lack of access to funding.

“Customs is not well trained to identify the components and the importation is too complicated, we are sometimes blocked for several months”, he informs. And to underline: “In Tunisia, we have everything to succeed but we lack visionaries within the State”.