UTEP to Host Annual Limbs Summit

What: Fourth annual LIMBS summit

When: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, June 3, 2016

Where: UTEP Business Administration Building, room 312

 

The University of Texas at El Paso’s College of Engineering and El Paso-based nonprofit organization LIMBS International will host research teams from around the world for the fourth annual LIMBS summit.

LIMBS International is dedicated to enabling more than 11 million amputees in the poorest countries around the world to become self-sufficient members of society by engineering low-cost, highly functional and sustainable prosthetic solutions.

At the same time, LIMBS empowers students by enabling them to create these low-cost prosthetic devices in laboratories at UTEP, home of the LIMBS research and development efforts, and across the United States.

LIMBS International serves to engage communities through the training center and clinics they have established across the world in Kenya, India, Ecuador, Bangladesh, Senegal, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

“UTEP has been a fantastic place to host the LIMBS Summit in past years and we are excited to see that pairing come together again this year,” said Aaron Nystrom, LIMBS coordinator. “There is a lot happening in university research aimed at helping the poorest of the poor, but most of those efforts never come to maturity. It is our great hope that sharing our ideas and encouraging one another on those efforts will produce real outcomes that can truly change the world.”

The LIMBS Summit is a forum for collaboration to provide opportunities to grow the vision for meeting the diverse and complex needs of amputees and disabled persons around the world. At the same time, it provides the opportunity to learn about the progress being made by the various LIMBS research teams from around the world.

This year, teams from nine universities will participate in the summit, including Queens University in Ontario, Canada; Olin College; and Purdue University.

The teams have been working throughout the year to develop prosthetic and orthotic technology for low-income countries. The first place team will receive $1,000.

Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m., followed by keynote speaker Fabian Calderon of Custom Orthotics and Prosthetics, who will present the keynote address. Throughout the day, each university will present their research. Presentations will come to a close with the awards ceremony at 5 p.m.

Summit attendees are asked to RSVP for the event. There is a registration fee of $25 for students and $75 for faculty.

To RSVP for the LIMBS Summit, please visit https://limbssummit2016.splashthat.com/.