In 2011, Richard Van As began designing a 3-D printed hand. After severing all the fingers on his right hand in a woodworking accident, he realized that he couldn’t afford to buy a prosthetic. So, he decided to make his own.
What followed was remarkable—a study in the speed of open development and the power of sharing.
A prosthetic hand is tricky to make. So, after creating his first prototypes, Richard contacted Ivan Owen, a special effects artist and puppeteer who had built a large mechanical hand. Strangers living continents apart, Richard and Owen began sharing their knowledge and prototyping designs and e-NABLE was born.
Soon, others began contacting them, asking if Ivan and Richard could design a hand for them as well. From then on, their work began changing the lives of people they had never met—including Liam and Waldo, two South African boys.
In the e-NABLE story, the open source development model played out in a hardware community, with users becoming designers. Open maker community was on the verge of disrupting an entire industry.
Our film captures their story and the remarkable benefits of open development. Red Hat, the world's largest open source IT company, employ these same principles using open source technology every day. Whether it's writing code, activating a community, or helping a child in need, open source is changing how we live and work.
e-NABLE: Open technology, faster progress. A Red Hat film.
