How Disney And Open Bionics Are Making Prosthetic 'Superpowers' For All With A Limb Difference

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How Disney And Open Bionics Are Making Prosthetic ‘Superpowers’ For All With A Limb Difference

Steven Aquino
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Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Steven covers accessibility and assistive technologies.

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Jul 24, 2024,04:54pm EDT

Updated Jul 24, 2024, 06:24pm EDT

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9-year-old Elisa has a limb difference and uses a prosthetic from Open Bionics.

Disney

At 9 years old, Elisa Ynafante Ferreira holds the honorable distinction of being the youngest person I’ve interviewed in my 11 years as a reporter.

Ferreira, who lives in Georgia with her family and loves pizza, drawing, hip-hop and jazz dancing, and is a Girl Scout, was born with a limb difference. She was born with only one hand, with her mom Nathalie telling me in a recent interview via videoconference that her daughter has adapted such that doing most everything one-handed has become “second nature.” Nonetheless, her family looked into several solutions to try to find something that would make certain things easier for her to do, like writing or riding her bike or holding her bow in archery class.

“I was the fastest runner in my class,” Elisa said to me.

Nathalie explained [...]