The Victoria Hand Project is a charity that creates low cost prosthetic arms for lower income areas of the world.
“Here in Victoria, we do the design, the engineering and the testing of the prosthetic arms,” said CEO Michael Peirone. “And then we partner with clinics in developing countries or conflict affected areas, and we teach them how to use 3D printing, 3D scanning, computer software, so they can produce these prosthetic arms in their own communities.”
The project got its start as a study led by mechanical engineering professor Nick Dechev, looking into the feasibility of 3D printed prosthetics.
“There were some trials that were done in Guatemala back in 2014, and these were just to test out the hands, not really with the idea of humanitarian aid in mind,” Peirone said.
“But then the participants in the study, the ones that were testing out the prosthetic arms in Guatemala, they were asking to keep the prosthetic arms since they didn’t have one of their own. And this spurred the idea for Nick Dechev to start a nonprofit organization that can begin providing these prosthetic arms in areas of need.”
Peirone says the group is inundated with requests from new partner sites looking to work with them.
“We’re in conversations with groups India and Syria and Rwanda, hopefully we can expand there very soon,” he said. “Being a smaller team it is harder to take these on but hopefully as we grow, we can grow to new communities as well and just help reduce barriers to prosthetic care.”
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