January 5, 2024
Fortunate Son
“Far better ideas than those you or I have had have failed, and no one is crying about it.” If I had to boil it down to one sentence, these are the words I would take away at the end of the day. These are the words of Arun Cherian, founder of Rise Bionics. This morning we visited their shop where they manufacture prosthetics and orthoses for the disabled across Bangalore and India.
Rise Bionics’ journey began years ago, not with $10k scanners, nor carbon fiber, but with cane wood. Abundant across India, cane is typically twisted into beautiful, high strength furniture. Arun, who’s background in robotics and prosthetics took him to Columbia University, Berkeley, and even MIT, noted cane’s spring-like elasticity and the strength to support a human load and saw the potential to make low cost prosthetics.
Inside, the workshop is tight. Our class of ten dwarfed the space (thank you again to our hosts). Shelves lined with prosthetics: cranial, above the knee, hands, you name it and molds of human limbs in bins under the workbench. In the back there’s a big machine enclosed in white metal, developed by Arun and his team to etch out foam shapes with sub-millimeter precision. High on the wall, shelves made of a bent cane hold large, unassuming foam blocks.
Arun noted the foam multiple times and to be honest, at first I thought “big whoop, you have foam.” That is at least until I realized that that foam is a testament to four years of work to ensure the success of his operation.
Arun emphasized that to truly help India’s disabled and amputees, their prosthetics had to be cost accessible. Despite being the “sexy” new thing, this required finding an alternative to expensive 3D printers and engineer-grade filaments. The solution involved engraving blocks of foam to form molds which the prosthetic cap could be cast around, ensuring the most accurate and comfortable fit from the first time it’s put on. However, importing foams would make their prosthetics cost prohibitive for the majority of Indians, rendering everything else effectively useless.
In response to this obstacle, Arun spent the next four years working to manufacture the foam in house, thereby ensuring that every stage of their process was cost accessible for the majority of Indians.
What previously were just blocks of foam up on the wall now appeared as a testament to Arun’s perseverance to overcome every possible bottleneck in his path.
Ultimately, I feel his tale is one of adaptation. What began as prosthetics made from cane has evolved over nine years into an internationally-recognized operation utilizing phone-scanning technology and high precision engineering to manufacture prosthetics at scales, speeds and prices never seen before, enabling them to help tens of thousands across India. Pretty bang up job if you ask me.
In all likelihood, I am not smart enough to manufacture prosthetics. But from his journey I withdrew a simple truth: execution of the idea and solving the problem is really the only thing that matters. It doesn’t matter how sexy the solution is, nor how tedious the obstacle, without shareholder adoption, you have nothing. How Rise Bionics began is not how it looks today. What Arun thought was their end-all product in year one is now a minute aspect of their business. But in adaptation, he has stayed course to the bigger picture: democratizing health care and helping people regain access to their life.
Later that day, we visited a lake currently under rehabilitation by Biome. Much like I felt in Arun’s workshop, I was struck by the level of genius and effort poured into a littered lake where I did not expect to find it. Both of these sites represent the work of those with extraordinary levels of education and professional accomplishment, who’ve brought their expertise back to make the world a better place.
As we emerged from Rise Bionics’ space, I looked down the humble street. The road was quiet and dusty. The sidewalk was discontinuous and cracked. There was no billboard, no slick sign calling attention to the high-tech operation within. Struck by emotion, my feet came to a stop. To think how much good, how much impact for neglected lives came from this humble street nearly brought me to tears, which rarely happens.
All in all it was a pretty good day.
By Andoni
