ABOUT THE PANEL DISCUSSION:
Imagine a time when technology trumps injury and disease, and the very notion of disability begins to fade. These panelists suggest that we are at the dawn of such an era.

John Hockenberry, who zips around the stage in his flashing light –equipped wheelchair, tells us that “vast, extraordinary and sometimes frightening physical change can instead of being feared … actually be embraced and become an opportunity for people to take authorship of their own lives, using products and tools made by technology to make their life experiences better.” He sees an aging and longer-lived demographic necessitating new and better devices, and the likelihood that such tools may find broader use among a larger, able-bodied population.

Hugh Herr lost both legs below the knee to frostbite while hiking Mt. Washington in 1982. But his drive to climb compelled him to invent replacements that from his perspective far surpass the clumsy, skin-colored prostheses generally available. Herr demonstrates his biomechanical inventions, which provide not only a natural gait but additional energy to each stride – like an airport walkway, he says. Herr believes with some tweaking, his device could help stroke victims walk with better balance, and that the advantage conferred by such a device could make it desirable beyond the disabled population – think physical improvement by way of robotics, rather than steroids. As technology once intended exclusively for disabled people finds wider applications, there will be a transformation, says Herr, which “creates a world where there is not disability, but in fact augmentation. It makes it sexy. It’s the muscle car.”

Dean Kamen performs astonishing pirouettes in his iBOT, a device inspired by his desire to give wheelchair users the same view of the world taken for granted by those able to stand. This machine can give physically challenged people the independence to climb stairs, take a walk in the woods or at the beach.

Kamen also presents, through video clips, breathtaking developments in a robotic artificial arm – the result of U.S. government efforts to fast track (in two years!) a state-of-the-art prosthesis for victims of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nerve and muscle-sensing electrodes enable this arm to pick up small blocks, pieces of paper, and rotate at the wrist. Without government funding, this device would not have been developed, Kamen notes, due to market limitations. Kamen himself subsidizes development of other high tech tools for disabled people (his more lucrative day job involves making insulin pumps and stents). While he’d like these technologies to become “a killer app among people who can pay,” Kamen says, “We will continue to fund them with the naïve notion that it’s the right thing to do, and hope that we will meet our original objective of making the world a better place.”

NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
Video length is 1:31:47.

Chairman and President of the MIT Enterprise Forum, Joseph Hadzima, Jr., opens the session. He introduces the moderator, John Hockenberry.

At 3:27, Hockenberry begins. He introduces the speakers and poses his first question to Hugh Herr, involving his start in designing prosthetic devices.

At 18:00, Herr begins.

At 24:25, Herr shows a video of a powered foot-ankle prosthesis.

At 25:02, Herr demonstrates this device himself.

At 30:08, Dean Kamen discusses how he came to be interested in designing technology for the disabled.

At 50:23, and 51:36, and 52:01, Kamen shows a video of a prosthetic arm his company is developing for the U.S. government.

At 53:00, Hockenberry asks the panelists about possibilities for developing markets for these tools.

At 1:05:15, Q&A begins. Topics include:
ethical issues around augmentation; how an aging population will affect interest in new technology for the disabled; whether payer systems fail to adopt new technologies; and marketing new technologies.