My new bionic hand

Fabrice Barès, 39, whose right hand was amputated when he was 4 years old, will soon wear a “bionic” hand giving him the chance to lead an almost-normal life. To pay for this new-type prosthesis, Fabrice has turned to crowdfunding, participative financing made possible by internet. Friends, family and perfect strangers are helping him to collect the 30,000 euros necessary to by this hi-tech artificial hand.

The “bionic” arm has become the spearhead of an ongoing revolution in which specialists in robotics and IT are working to help medicine “repair” amputees, who are notably high in number in the United States due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although a dozen companies in the world are busy developing these new prostheses, young amputees have decided to build their own “open source” bionic hands, at a much lower cost.

From France to the United Kingdom and the United States, an encounter with these innovators and the leaders of a bionic revolution.