TEDxSF - Berkeley Bionics - Merging Technology and the Human Body

More than anything else, Eythor Bender is a team builder. You want to be on his team. And that's good news for bionics, a nascent industry that Eythor has championed and grown, taking bionic prosthetics from unconventional approaches to sustainable, approved products that merge man and machine, and enhance individuals' participation in their community. Today and as CEO of Berkeley Bionics -- developer and maker of wearable robots - Eythor is leading his company's charge to boost everyone's potential through personal bionics.

This year, Berkeley Bionics is introducing two new exoskeletons to the market that augment mobility, strength and endurance: eLEGS powers wheelchair users up to get them standing and walking again; and HULCTM (Human Universal Load Carrier) enables users to carry up to 200 lbs. for hours and over all terrains, while reducing the likelihood of back-injuries.

Eythor is a native of Iceland, with a Masters in Business and Economics from Germany, where he began his career with Hewlett Packard in medical diagnostics and computer imaging. He went on to join Nordic-European Ossur, which pioneered the field of commercial bionics. Eythor led Ossur's Americas division, taking it from a start-up to a world leader in the field of wearable, non-invasive technologies designed for amputees, injury prevention, rehabilitation and pain relief. He lives in San Francisco and most recently spoke at TED2011 in Long Beach, California.

event video by: http://repertoireproductions.com/

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  Nonprofits & Activism

[Dillon Colbert]

Now how to replace the bones of the disabled extremities with polycarbons that house the servos, the power supplies and the gyroscopes run it up to a processing unit at the base of the spine and get the appropriate signals from the brain still inside the skull and run it down to the processor calculate it out and give them the exact movement of normal legs emulated. The two major obstacles to overcome would be charging the system and the mind/machine interface; easy in theory just some obstacles

[Xenosophia]

annoying

[chatterama]

She is great and so is this technology! I hope it can help people in wheelchairs live active lives the way they want!

[rmcdaniel423]

It was cute, in the beginning, how she kept popping wheelies without even thinking about it.

[shikilaki]

you can skip to 2:45 if you dont really care about this woman...

[MyLipstickLady]

What a wonderful ending. Her laughter was giddy... beautiful...Let's you know that anything is possible. Very Inspriational

[Bagabagab]

Howcome we did not see her walk in the light??? The image changes to stupid magazine picture or footage of the crowd as soon as she gets out of the shade!

[1p2o3i]

It's shelved for civilians in favour of military applications, they can fund developement, prototypes and testing and have enough viable test subjects among crippled active soldiers and veterans. In the end almost every American civilian robotic device is a hand-me-down from a successful military device. It would be the other way around in almost every other country but the US work that way, naturally.

[1p2o3i]

Her bit was more like a modern theatre performance than a TED talk, overdone and theatrical, I could not take her seriously. I actually thought she would indeed stand up at the end and bow before the clapping audience.

A sober recount of her story would have been more effective and credible.