The Social Entrepreneur Award 2022 from UnLtd
SCALED has just been awarded the Social Start-Up Award by UnLtd!
About UnLtd.
UnLtd is a UK-registered charity that finds, funds and supports social entrepreneurs - enterprising people with solutions that change our society for the better. UnLtd was formed in 2002 by seven organisations who believed that social entrepreneurs had a much bigger contribution to make to our economy and society. The charity finds social entrepreneurs with bold solutions to today’s challenges. Through funding and support, UnLtd help them to realise their potential and create lasting change.
(Source: UnLtd website)
About the Social Start-up Award
The Social Start-up Award is given to social businesses to help them grow and achieve their purpose of creating impact in society. SCALED will be part of UnLtd’s ‘Healthy Ageing’ social business group and receive financial and mentoring support.
(Source: UnLtd website)
SCALED’s social objective: Providing better solutions for injury prevention to our ageing societies
SCALED has been awarded for its purpose of addressing the social issue of the lack of suitable protective wearables to enable long, healthy lives for our ageing population.
The social issue
The number of older persons is projected to be 1.5 billion in 2050. 1.71 billion people have musculoskeletal conditions worldwide which is the leading contributor to disability (WHO). In addition, 33% of people over 65 years fall each year, which causes serious injury, increases the fear of falling again, isolation and even death (WHO). There is an urgent need for protective wearables that can prevent injury and offer support after an injury has occurred.
Natalie’s personal experience
When developing SCALED, Natalie, our founder and CEO, was inspired by her own frequent joint injuries and the struggle she experienced with finding well-fitting and comfortable orthotics. She realised that many of her family members, especially the older generations, experienced these struggles of finding fitting, supportive and yet empowering orthotics. Her parents and grandparents were more prone to joint injury and thus had to wear ill-fitting wearables more frequently. This would often lead to further injury, prolonged recovery periods and frustration.
As a multidisciplinary designer, engineer and researcher, Natalie is used to solving real-world problems through new technologies with a human-centred design approach. Witnessing the collective struggle, she and her family were experiencing, inspired her to use her skill in computational design, manufacturing and 3D printing to develop SCALED.
The solution: SCALED – flexible protective wearables for independent and healthy ageing
SCALED addresses the issue of well-fitting protective wearables for our ageing societies by offering a custom-fit protective wearable, inspired by our natural world. Our patented parametric algorithm designs an interlocking geometry of scales. This engineering innovation allows flexibility in specific directions, with protection and support in others. Our algorithm calculates each individual scale’s geometry to control the structure’s properties and thus allows for mass customization, addressing each person's unique individual needs. Our product will offer our ageing population a better way to prevent injury and live a longer and healthier life.