{"id":105066,"date":"2019-12-04T17:21:30","date_gmt":"2019-12-04T22:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=105066"},"modified":"2020-02-12T11:05:45","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T16:05:45","slug":"limbitless-solutions-speaks-at-un-to-raise-awareness-for-disabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/limbitless-solutions-speaks-at-un-to-raise-awareness-for-disabilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Limbitless Solutions Speaks at U.N. to Raise Awareness for Disabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

World leaders are taking notice of a little hub on UCF\u2019s campus where young lives are transformed in powerful \u2014 make that mega<\/em>-powerful \u2014 ways.<\/p>\n

True story: A teenage girl sketches a drawing of a bionic arm on a piece of paper. It\u2019s a princess arm, you might say, with gold swirls and strong, elegant fingers. Surely, this girl \u2014 Annika is her name \u2014 doesn\u2019t believe the cute picture will go any further than a scrapbook of mementos \u2026 does she? The world of prosthetic engineering and design is cumbersome, complex and exorbitant. It\u2019s never been a place for kids. Except Annika sends the sketch to Limbitless Solutions in Knights Plaza on the UCF campus. There, in a small office of computer desks and an even tinier manufacturing space, a team goes to work on Annika\u2019s dream. Six months later, there it is: a bionic princess arm, designed, built and ready to use.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne advantage of being small is that we can bring ideas to life quickly,\u201d says Limbitless branding director Mrudula Peddinti \u201918<\/strong>, who majored in emerging media<\/a> and digital media<\/a>. \u201cIt allows us to change the conversation about bionic arms for underserved kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Dec. 3, Peddinti and Annika Bryson-Emmert took the conversation to a stage no one could have imagined in 2014 when a group of UCF students founded Limbitless: the United Nations.<\/p>\n

The United Nations in New York City \u2026 no pun intended, but how in the world did this happen?
\n<\/strong>It\u2019s actually the second time we\u2019ve sent someone from Limbitless to speak at the U.N. Our cofounder, Albert Manero \u201912 \u201914MS \u201916PhD<\/strong>, went three months earlier. Annika was there, too. It says something that they\u2019d invite us back.<\/p>\n

They must have liked what they heard the first time.
\n<\/strong>The first conversation at the U.N. focused on empowering girls who need prosthetics. We\u2019ve found that parents are far more willing to seek out options for boys, maybe because boys are perceived to be more physical. The ratio of prosthetics being sought and accepted is just one girl for every five boys.<\/p>\n

How can your little place at the center of campus change that?
\n<\/strong>Design is one of the keys. The typical bionic arm looks just the way you\u2019d imagine a bionic arm to look: robotic and mechatronic. The appearance feeds right into a stereotype that makes girls less likely to want a bionic arm.<\/p>\n

And Annika has helped you break the stereotype?
\n<\/strong>When she drew up her idea for the ideal girls\u2019 bionic limb, we didn\u2019t know how it would be received. But think about it: who would know better how to design a bionic arm for girls than a bionic girl? We do the same thing for boys \u2014 empower them and give them a voice in what we create.<\/p>\n