Enabling people to move freely is essential to unleashing human potential. We believe mobility is the key to helping every individual live up to their full potential – because when you are free to move, anything is possible.
Mobility is a fundamental part of being independent and free to participate in society, including everyday living, work and leisure activities. Yet, globally, society is not fully inclusive to millions of people with lower-limb paralysis.
The most common causes of paralysis are strokes, spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis. While there are no statistics on paralysis worldwide, the World Health Organization estimates there are 250,000-500,000 new cases of spinal cord injury globally every year.
While there is no single experience of paralysis, people with paralysis face barriers to their mobility, and therefore their independence, because of inaccessible environments and inadequate technology.
Mobility devices can be life changing, but the pace of innovation is slow. Disincentives such as small and fragmented markets, regulatory burdens, and difficulties getting new technology paid for by healthcare systems and insurers are all impeding progress.
The Mobility Unlimited Challenge aims to help change the lives of people with lower-limb paralysis through supporting groundbreaking personal mobile devices incorporating intelligent systems.
Technological advances, especially in digital technology, open up new possibilities for both functionality and usability of assistive mobility devices, if they are applied in the right way.
A new generation of advanced assistive mobility technology is emerging that provides new functionality, such as stair climbing wheelchairs, robotic exoskeletons for standing and walking, and functional electrical stimulation (FES) devices providing muscle movement and exercise.
However, such innovation is still in the early stages and few devices incorporate smart or intelligent systems to improve user mobility and independence.
The assistive mobility technology field could benefit from technologies and innovators from outside the assistive technology field as well as from greater support to those in the field.
This is where you come in - help us make people’s lives better by bringing leading, smart technology to the world of assistive mobility devices.
Challenge prizes are about inciting people to create new or innovative solutions to a problem without predetermining what those solutions will look like. Instead, a challenge will focus on what success against the problem will look like, allowing innovators to develop solutions that will achieve desired outcomes.
The Mobility Unlimited Challenge needs you to design the mobility solutions of the future and push the boundaries by incorporating intelligent systems into mobility devices.
By entering the Challenge, you join innovators from around the world who are working towards the same goal - improving the lives of people with lower-limb paralysis through better mobility and greater independence.
Building on universal design principles to create a more equitable environment, entries for the Mobility Unlimited Challenge must be user-centered. The Challenge will be a catalyst for innovation through co-creation with the people around the world who will benefit most from the solutions discovered by our entrants.
We want to find the mobility solutions of the future. The possibilities are endless - from exoskeletons, to artificial intelligence and machine learning, to advanced batteries.
The Mobility Unlimited Challenge has been designed to support innovators around the world to develop their ideas.
Challenges (also known as challenge prizes) are a tried and tested method for supporting innovation. They offer a reward to whoever can first or most effectively meet a defined issue or problem. Challenges are effective tools for:
- Spurring and supporting innovative solutions
- Overcoming market failure
- Widening the pool of innovators, prompting collaboration
- Creating new markets
- Raising awareness
This Challenge is open to everyone - designers, engineers and technologists across the spectrum.
Our ambition is for the Mobility Unlimited Challenge to attract and support smaller innovators who might otherwise struggle to break into the assistive technology market. This includes start-ups, smaller companies, university departments and spin-outs. In order to achieve this, the Challenge will engage technologies and innovators from diverse specialities.
At the end of the Mobility Unlimited Challenge, we will have supported teams of innovators around the world to create leading edge technological solutions, opening a new chapter in personal mobility for people with lower-limb paralysis.