Trésdesis

Currently there are estimated 100 million people without limbs in the world; 83% of them can not afford anything that helps them in their daily life to carry out basic activities. This affects not only their personal life but also their professional career, especially in developing countries, where people with disabilites are marginalised and put aside even from schools and public spaces.

High-tech prosthesis, in general, represents a very large investment with a high maintenance cost. Even in developed countries, most of the amputees or people with agenesis can not afford them, as in most of the occasions they are not covered by the social security.

The “trésdesis” are arms printed in 3D which have prehensile mobility thanks to the articulation that each person has (wrist, elbow, shoulder) and are individually adapted to each one. The mechanism is easy: with the natural articulation movement of the person, a mechanism of nylon threads is activated, that makes the fingers close tightly and by undoing this movement some rubber bands return the fingers to their initial position. Furthermore, Ayúdame3D has introduced a great innovation in the world of 3D printed prosthetics: the "trésdesis" designed for people without an elbow, being the first 3D arm, prehensile, that does not need electronics.

Ayúdame3D offers its "trésdesis" for free, anywhere in the world, to any person that needs them, constituting an opportunity for people with disabilities who cannot afford any other prosthesis.

People who are given a “trésdesis” experience a radical change, since having the upper limbs allows them to carry out a multitude of tasks that improve their quality of life both personally and professionally: they allow them to carry out activities that they were not capable of doing before, but also facilitate those that they were already capable of performing with one or no limbs, meaning a huge improvement in their productivity.

In addition, the fact that the "tresdesis" work mechanically gives them a comparative advantage over robotic prostheses and is that they can get wet, which facilitates something as essential as taking a shower, washing the dishes or household chores that involve contact with water. In addition, something key is their weight (any model exceeds 500 grams), which makes them very light, so people get used to carrying them quickly without involving physical effort for them

Our motto is “helping is too easy not to do it” and we believe that this is precisely the basis for humanizing society: putting ourselves in the shoes of other people and finding a way to help them, because there is always a way to do it within our reach. In addition, we are a great example of how technology, and especially social entrepreneurship, can help to positively impact society: cutting-edge technology such as 3D printing allows us to easily and economically improve the lives of many people.

Furthermore, we want to change the aid model: going from providing the "trésdesis" to each person anywhere in the world to giving local communities, especially in developing countries, the tools and technology needed for them to help directly their families and neighbors. Because of this, we have created the first 3D printing lab in Kenya, in a small village called Kabarnet, where we have trained two university students to design and print our"trésdesis", so currently, all the requests coming from Kenya are produced there, locally, which not only empower the local community  but also it is much more suistainable, as it is not necessary to send it from our office in Spain.

We would use this Prize for continuing the work of our NGO. It would allow us to increase our team in order to design new devices that could help with other health problems, especially those of people with disabilities or from vulnerable backgrounds, hopefully in a time bound of two to three years. In addition, it will allow us to continue printing our “trésdesis”, increasing our capacity and reaching more people that need them. Finally, we could create a couple of 3D labs around the world before 2023, empowering local communities in developing countries.

Our devices are given for free to any person that needs them anywhere in the world.We offer individual solutions to any person that needs help, even if it is the only case like that in the world. We research and design a proper device for that person. In addition, as we explained before, we want to change the aid model with the 3D printing lab which is also really innovative in health solutions.

Finally,  Ayúdame3D introduced a great innovation in the world of 3D printed prosthetics: the trésdesis designed for people without an elbow, being the first 3D arm, prehensile, that does not need electronics.

Our impact goals is to reach everyone who want a prothesis but they can't afford one, as well as the establishment of 5 new 3D labs in developing countries, especially in Africa. 

- Number of "trésdesis" delivered

- Number of countries where we send the "trésdesis"

- Number of 3d labs implemented

- Numer of "trésdesis" make in our 3d lab

- Number of people with other health diseases who contact us to develop any other device

Ayúdame3D designs and delivers trésdesis to improve the quality of life of those who wants a prothesis. It is true that not all the amputees or people with agenesis want or need a prothesis, so it is fundamental to normalise that people has different kinds of limbs and everything is ok.

We use 3D printing for all the devices that we print for people with disabilities or from vulnerable backgrounds, which is the core of our entity: from printing arms for amputees, to pillboxs for people with Parkinson or boxes called “Chemobox” to cover the chemotherapy of children. 

It is a cheap technology, easy to learn and can be done from anyone’s home, scalable and has a lot of potencial. Because of this, AM is the base of “Ayudame3D”, and we use it for all the devices we create, as we give them for free to anyone who need them.

The team is composed mainly by women, which is important for gender equality, especially in technology, a field dominated by men. In addition, in our 3D lab in Kenya we selected two students, a man and a woman, again to support gender equality. This is trend that we expect to do in all our 3dlabs.

In addition, one person with disabilities who received one of our "tresdesis" is just about to join our staff team, in order not only to be more inclusive, but to have some inside perspective.

As our beneficiaries are receiving our devices for free, our clients are not the same as our beneficiaries. Thus our market is the one which we are getting funds from.  In order to fulfill our main objective and help our beneficiaries, we operate as a social enterprise. Our income strategy is based on different services and products. On the one hand, we have a social responsibility program based on technology as well as a catalog of 3d printed products, mainly trophies and personalized items for enterprises. On the other hand, we offer educational programs to schools in order to teach children the social impact of technologies. All the income raised is used to fund our trésdesis. To give the project greater stability, our income strategy also includes the traditional NGO model based on donations, awards and public and private grants. 

As explained above, we have a diversified funds, which makes us financially sustainbale. We are not a traditional NGO, we offer some valuable products and services in order to raise funds for our core objective: helping people.

We have received many grants and prizes such as:

• Humanitarian Technology Prize 2021 - Cruz Roja

• Discapnet Awards for Accessible Technologies 2021 - Fundación ONCE

• Ministry of Education of Spain

• Princesa de Girona Social Prize 2020

• National Prize 2020 - Javier Pancorbo EY

• First National Prize 2021 - Premios Telva Solidaridad

• Inspiring Volunteering 2019 - Fundación Telefónica

• Sustainable Thinking 2019 - Premios Optimistas Comprometidos

• Social Innovation 2019 - Egypt World Youth Forum 

• Social Award 2019 - Unleash19 (Trivu)
  

Regarding our social responsibility program based on technology, mmany big enterprises has already collaborated such as CocaCola, Playstation, Telefónica, etc. More examples at: https://ayudame3d.org/responsa...