International Day of Persons with Disabilities: our 4 Tech Care startups

Can you imagine braking your bike by grabbing the front wheel with your bare hands? Unthinkable, no?  Yet this is daily life for 65 million wheelchair users. To solve this problem, Eppur has designed a pair of wheels that can be adapted to any manual wheelchair, including a braking system: Dreeft.

Tested and approved by Martin Petit, who became a quadriplegic three years ago, this YouTuber and Instagrammer has over 80k subscribers. He was one of the very first people to test this new innovative device.

In addition to the friction burns caused by hands rubbing against the wheels, there is also strong pressure on the shoulders and wrists, which causes significant trauma," he says. Their system allows you to keep control and to brake smoothly, without any forcing", he reported to Le Parisien last March.

While Eppur works to improve mobility for people with disabilities by addressing the issue of braking, Gyrolift focuses on the issue of inclusion.

This device, conceived and developed by Lambert Trenoras, is based on a gyropod that allows its user to move while sitting or standing in an urban or rural environment, for personal or professional use.

Easy to use, all you just have to lean slightly forward or backward to move forward or backward, and guide with the handlebars to turn. This device allows "maintaining accessibility to certain jobs, providing access to new ones for people with reduced mobility and also reducing the difficulty of certain tasks" specified Lambert Trenoras during an interview for L'orne combattante.

It is important to underline that today, mobility is not only a matter for wheelchair users but also for anyone with any motor disability, limiting their movements.

For example, how can we enable a person who has lost the use of his or her lower limbs or has muscle weakness to regain the sensation of movement, the ability to move and the benefits of physical activity? The startup Kürage has found the solution: an artificial intelligence that reproduces the brain's intelligence in its ability to move.

How? By combining functional neuromuscular stimulation technology and a powerful intelligent algorithm in two pieces of sports equipment: the bicycle and the rowing machine.

These two devices intended for use in rehabilitation centers or gyms can also allow athletes or a person who has no muscular problems to multiply their number of training sessions. This is currently happening in the "Osmose" sports gym located in Dijon, which wants to "revolutionize its members’ sports practices”.

Speaking of rehab...

Founded in 2016, Ezygain addresses the issue of mobility by focusing on gait and balance rehabilitation.

After observing her grandmother, founder Zineb Agoumi wondered about walking aids. What did she notice? A lack of equipment in health facilities.  This led her to create ema®, with Félix Botella and Thibault Faÿ, then amy® -- two walking and balance rehabilitation mats.

Since 2016, these materials are being used in hospital environments (nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, etc.) but also at home through an easy-to-use rental system.

For fuller immersion and to give this rehabilitation time a more playful aspect, this Parisian startup has developed a virtual reality module which allows the patient to experience 360° immersion via his/her visual and auditory senses, as well as stimulating the patient’s concentration and sense of observation while performing his motor task.

These four startups are incubated at Tech Care.  They reflect Paris&Co's commitment to actively work towards improving the quality of life for people with disabilities through our incubation programs, Tech Care and HUA! the handitech program.