This is just one of the coolest things I have ever seen. We've got a faculty member at UCSC who is working on exoskeletons, but this is far and away the most advanced one I have seen for paralyzed people.
After being paralyzed for the past 20 years, Radi Kaiof began to walk down a street in Israel to the sound of a dim mechanical hum. That was the sound of an electronic exoskeleton, developed by a small Israeli high-tech company, propelling the 41 year old paraplegic down the street with a proud expression on his face. The device, called ReWalk, is the brain child of engineer Amit Goffer, founder of Argo Medical Technologies. While ReWalk helps paraplegics, people paralyzed below the waist, to walk, stand and climb stairs, for Goffer, the device has a much more important impact on the user. Goffer himself was paralyzed in an accident in 1997, but he cannot use his own invention because he does not have full function of his arms. The product, slated for commercial sales in 2010, is not cheap. The company said it will cost as much as the more sophisticated wheelchairs on the market, which sell for about 20,000 U.S. dollars. The system consists of motorized leg supports, body sensors and a backpack containing a computerized control box and rechargeable batteries. The user picks a setting with a remote control wrist band - stand, sit, walk, descend or climb - and then leans forward, activating the body sensors and setting the robotic legs in motion. The ReWalk is now in clinical trials in Tel Aviv's Sheba Medical Centre and will soon be used in trials at the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in Pennsylvania. Goffer says his aim is not only to ease the lives of those strapped to wheelchairs but also to allow them to lead a 'normal' life. Yet for Radi Kaiof, who has not risen from his wheelchair for the past 20 years, the effects of ReWalk are not just normal, they are life-changing.
Truly inspired.
My first Ph.D. student sent me a link to another blog post that talked about the differences between ideas and execution, which we both found rather compelling. The short of it is that ideas are quite literally a dime a dozen, and that even if they are any good, you will have to fight quite hard tot get people to accept them. Whereas execution or delivery is everything, it gives the idea body, life.
In the first of the two articles on this, the main point is that execution has a multiplier effect on the original idea--if the idea is worth something like $20, the (very well) executed idea is worth $20,000,000.
I wouldn't call ideas worthless, per se, but it's clear that ideas alone are a hollow sort of currency. Success is rarely determined by the quality of your ideas. But it is frequently determined by the quality of your execution. So instead of worrying about whether the Next Big Idea you're all working on is sufficiently brilliant, worry about how well you're executing.
Success Comes From Execution, not Innovation
It doesn't matter how good or how new my idea is. It matters how well I carry it out in the real world.Now, our history books worship the inventors, not the executors. We are taught all about the people who invent new things, come up with new ideas, and plough new trails. But look around you in present time and in the recent past, and you'll see that the most successful people are the ones who carried out the idea really well, not the people who came up with the idea.
Both articles are well worth the read.
As someone who sees lots of good ideas (and has them) during my research, this makes great intuitive sense--ideas in and of themselves have little value to offer; only the concrete implementation of them demonstrates both their viability and utility. Now, if only I could get the funding agencies to realize this.