# Transcript

SUBJECT
So we are currently in a maker space. And there are all sorts of digital fabrication tools and machines around us. We have 3D printers, laser cutters, cnc mills. So it's very, very user led. And our main focus is really on facilitating that so that people can have wheelchairs that are designed for them.
We were inspired, or Rachael Wallach, who's the founder of Disrupt Disability, was inspired by an organisation called Enable, who she came across when she was on a trip to, I think, Jordan.
RACHAEL WALLACH
They were using 3D printing to support refugees of the Syrian crisis. They showed me a 3D printed prosthetic hand that they'd made for a boy who lost his fingers in the conflict. They'd fully customised it to his body.
And they'd even made it look like Ben 10 hand. So it was customised to his preferences. But the total cost was only $39 to make.
SUBJECT
Rachael did some research and found out for the reason that they were able to do this was because they were working with a community, an online community of designers, who were voluntarily designing and contributing their designs for prosthetics and that each of those designs could then be 3D printed. We think the people who are best placed to understand what they want from a wheelchair and articulate that are the people who use wheelchairs themselves.
RACHAEL WALLACH
So imagine you're trying to climb a mountain, but you're wearing a pair of stilettos. And they're three sizes too small. It would be pretty difficult.
And that's exactly what it's like to use a wheelchair that hasn't been customised to your body, your lifestyle, and your environment. The problem is, with traditional manufacture, customization is really expensive. So currently, a customised wheelchair cost about 2,000 pounds.
SUBJECT
At the moment, the wheelchair market is very different, to say, the market for glasses. I wear glasses because I can't really see very well without them. I go to opticians, and I receive a prescription for my glasses.
But from that point onwards, the experience of buying a pair of glasses is very much like the experience of buying a pair of shoes. It's down to my tastes. It's down to what I want to look like.
But wheelchairs, that process is quite medicalized. Somebody is immediately treated in the process of choosing their wheelchair as a disabled person. Whereas in my experience of buying glasses, I have never once been treated as a disabled person. And partly that's because there is not much customization in terms of wheelchairs. Wheelchair design has been quite static.
RACHAEL WALLACH
Previously, the only people involved in wheelchair design were medical professionals, engineers, designers, and perhaps, a wheelchair user at some point in that process. But the range of people we've been able to inform is much broader. So we've got artists. We had a locksmith. We've had people from an incredibly broad range of different disciplines.
And I think this kind of creativity is something that we'll start to see more of. Because distributed manufacture and digital fabrication really enable these kinds of collaboration.
INTERVIEWER
Can you tell us a bit more? What is digital fabrication? And what is distributed manufacturing?
SUBJECT
Sure. So digital fabrication is kind of what it says on the tin. It's using digital means, using something like CAD, computer aided design, to design and then manufacture. And distributed manufacturing means that you can manufacture anywhere.
You don't have to manufacture in a central location. So as opposed to where traditionally you might have a workshop where you're making all your wheelchairs, and then you ship those wheelchairs to the customer, we're looking at actually how can we take that manufacturing process much closer to the customer. So how could somebody go to their local maker space or their local manufacturer and have something made for them?
INTERVIEWER
Where is Disrupt Disability now?
SUBJECT
The point we've come to is we've started to look at creating a modular wheelchair system. We realised it's quite difficult for somebody who's never made a wheelchair before to make a whole wheelchair. And also that, for the user, they might have an element of their chair-- for example, the caster fork, the front wheels-- that they might say they need to change it.
So for their day-to-day life, when they're working in an office in London, they want something quite small and neat and discreet. But at the weekends, they like going for long walks in the Lake District. And therefore, they need something that can handle the rougher terrain.
INTERVIEWER
As you would do with a bike
SUBJECT
Yeah, as you would do with a bike. So having something that's able to be interchanged, we see as something that could really benefit both the user and the designer and the maker.
INTERVIEWER
Could you see this organisational model working for other organisations in the present and in the future?
SUBJECT
Yeah. I think, actually, it's a really good way to start a business. If you start with your users, your customers, the problem that you're trying to solve, and really make that very human, and then try and build your solutions out of that.