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McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine affiliated faculty member Rory Cooper, PhD, has been named an ambassador for the “Mobility Unlimited Challenge,” a $4 million global contest to change the lives of people with lower-limb paralysis, culminating in the unveiling of the winners in Tokyo in 2020.  This effort will harness creative thinking from across the world to accelerate innovation and encourage collaboration with users to find winning devices to transform the world for people with lower-limb paralysis.

The Mobility Unlimited Challenge is run by the Toyota Mobility Foundation in partnership with Nesta’s Challenge Prize Centre.

The Mobility Unlimited Challenge is seeking teams around the world to create game-changing technology that will help radically improve the mobility and independence of paralyzed people.

The Mobility Unlimited Challenge aims to harness creative thinking from across the world to accelerate innovation and encourage collaboration with users to find winning devices to transform the world for people with lower-limb paralysis. The Challenge will reward the development of personal mobility devices incorporating intelligent systems.

The mobility solutions of the future could include anything from exoskeletons, to artificial intelligence and machine learning, from cloud computing to batteries.

Dr. Cooper is the FISA & Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) Chair and Distinguished Professor of the Department of Rehabilitation Science & Technology, and professor of Bioengineering, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.  Dr. Cooper is Founding Director and VA Senior Research Career Scientist of the Human Engineering Research Laboratories, a VA Rehabilitation R&D Center of Excellence in partnership with Pitt.

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Mobility Unlimited Challenge