Posted by Gary O'Rielly on Mar 05, 2018
Jen Owen, making a huge difference in the World, spoke about Enabling the Future. She spoke about the e-Enabling Community as a group of individuals from all over the world who are using 3D printers to create free 3D printed hands and arms for those in need of an upper limb assistive device. She is the owner and founder of enablingthefuture.org. She has been a volunteer and participant in the field of open-source, 3D printed prosthetic hands for the past five years. Along the way, she has sought to highlight and document stories from the e-ENABLE Community of volunteers and to maintain an information resource for people interested in learning more about the history, design & fabrication of these devices through her website.
She is a leader for the global e-ENABLE Community and has helped to grow the movement to over 20 thousand volunteers, over 1,500 schools and First Robotics teams and hundreds of recipient families who are all helping to create free open source 3D printed hands and arms to over 5,000 people in over 100 countries worldwide. These volunteers are people who have put aside political, religious, cultural and personal differences--to come together and collaborate on ways to help improve the open-source 3D printable designs for hands and arms for those who were born missing fingers or who have lost them due to war, disaster or natural disaster. 
An amazing story of how one or two individuals coming together, can create an environment for change around the world. Thanks, Jen for showing us "how" it has come together over the past five years.