Overview
About Tensegrity and Jerome Rifkin
What might seem to be a series of unfortunate events, may in fact, be the first steps of a journey.
—Lemony Snicket
Vision
To make a prosthetic foot that replicates the functional biomechanics of the human foot in walking.
Personal Story
In 1996, Jerome Rifkin earned a degree in Engineering Science and Mechanics from the University of Florida. Just after graduating, he was biking home from working at a research lab when he was struck by a Jeep Grand Wagoneer. The vehicle struck him in the chest, knocking him to the ground, and then parked on his hand in the middle of a crosswalk. Adding irony to injury, the driver was a personal injury attorney who advertised on the back of a phone book, so the settlement was a long time coming. More to come on that... Before our intrepid inventor was fully recovered from this injury, he was mountain biking with newly installed clipless pedals that were adjusted too tightly. He fell while biking at high speed, and one of his feet remained clipped to the bike—at least until he got that extra little bit of leg rotation… from shearing through his femur. After being bedridden for three months, he had to learn to walk again.
It was through this personal experience and physical therapy that Jerome found his inspiration to create the Tensegrity prosthetic feet. Moving to Boulder, Colorado, on December 28, 1999, he felt caught up in the millennial fever and decided to make some changes in his life. In an attempt to bring meaning to his painful accidents, he began to tinker in his home shop, trying to recreate the function of the human foot in a prosthetic device. After another year or so, he finally settled the lawsuit for the bike vs. car accident, and that small settlement allowed him to negotiate his "day job" down to three-quarter time. He used this extra time to develop and refine his grant writing skills. In the next four years, Jerome's devotion was rewarded; the National Institutes of Health awarded him a large Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant. This funding allowed him to quit his day job and focus exclusively on the matter at hand, refining the designs for this revolutionary new prosthetic foot.
Since the grant was funded, Tensegrity progress has been swift and impressive. We have won major design awards—including the DaVinci Institute's Inventor of the Year Award—completed our human subjects trials, and begun collaborating with a variety of investors as we’ve launched the first Tensegrity foot. Even more importantly, the first amputees to use this biomechanically designed walking foot have loved it from the first steps.