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Shirking
$30,000 in medical fees for a traditional prosthetic hand,
videographer Paul McCarthy built a multi-colored “Robohand” for his
twelve-year-old son using a friend’s 3-D printer. McCarthy says he
spent, “Five, maybe, ten bucks.”

The boy, 12-year-old Leon
McCarthy, was born without fingers on his left hand. Once he turned
ten, Paul started searching for an inexpensive and functional
prosthetic alternative.

What he found changed his son’s life. A YouTube
video by Washington-based special effects artist and
puppeteer, Ivan Owen, shows the results of the artist’s
collaborative effort to build a Robohand for a disabled boy in
South Africa. Like McCarthy, Owen was not an engineer, computer
scientist, or doctor. However, he was passionate about helping to
develop affordable, DIY prosthetics. In an interview with CBS News,
Owen said:

I’ve always had this vision of people being able to build their
own prosthetic device at home.

To help him accomplish this goal, MakerBot, a firm that produces
3-D printing equipment, offered Owen and his South African design
partner, Richard Van As, free printers. From there, Owen and Van As
honed the Robohand and posted the design and
instructions for free download on Thingiverse, a website for
sharing digital designs.

According to
NPR, once the McCarthy’s discovered Owens’ video and the
Robohand instructions, they decided to make one for Leon:

Printing the parts (using a friend’s borrowed 3-D printer) was
easy, the two say. But it took them a month to figure out how to
string, screw and bolt together what they describe as the
“Frankenstein” version. It’s still a work in progress, they say,
but several weeks ago, Leon wore it to school for a tryout.

“I’m able to hold a pencil and piece of paper,” Leon says. “I’ve
done a lot more than I ever thought I could, so it’s opened up a
lot of new doors in my life.”

Van As is now raising money
through a crowdfunding site to build more Robohands for disabled
children at no cost to their families. In the meantime, the
latest version of
Robohand is available for free download – and the materials
cost just $5.

While many are lauding these developments as an awesome way to
revolutionize healthcare and DIY projects, some are concerned that
lobbyists and politicians may try to stop their proliferation. In

Forbes:

Because a 3D printer can make perfect replicas of many kinds of
object, manufacturers may seek to brand it a “piracy machine” and
demand additional measures to protect their traditional way of
doing business. Mr Weinberg worries that they may behave rather
like the record industry did when its own business model—based on
selling pricey CD albums that few music fans wanted, instead of
cheap single tracks they craved—came under attack from Napster and
other file-swapping networks.

According to a survey of gender experts published
by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Egypt is the worst country
in the Arab world when it comes to women’s rights. Saudi Arabia,

where women are not allowed to travel abroad without
permission, drive, or open a bank account, came in two places ahead
of Egypt.

The survey cites high levels of harassment, genital mutilation,
and trafficking as some of the factors contributing to Egypt’s
place on the list.

From the
Thomson Reuters Foundation:

Sexual harassment, high rates of female genital cutting and a
surge in violence and Islamist feeling after the Arab Spring
uprisings have made Egypt the worst country in the Arab world to be
a woman, a poll of gender experts showed on Tuesday.

Discriminatory laws and a spike in trafficking also contributed
to Egypt’s place at the bottom of a ranking of 22 Arab states, the
Thomson Reuters Foundation survey found.

According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation article, an April
United Nations report found that 99.3 percent of women and girls
are the subject of sexual harassment in Egypt. The article also
cites the claim, made by UNICEF, that 91 percent of Egyptian women
and girls are subjected to genital mutilation.

That the experts polled believe that Egypt is a worse Arab
country to be a woman in than Syria, where a brutal civil war is
being waged, is shocking. While Egypt has yet to descend into full
blown civil war, recent events such as last summer’s coup and the
military-backed government’s crackdown on supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood have not contributed to stability or the safety of
Egyptian women and girls. More from the Thomson Reuters
Foundation:

Syria’s civil war has had a devastating impact on women at home
and in refugee camps across borders, where they are vulnerable to
trafficking, forced and child marriage and sexual violence, experts
said.

Rights groups say forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have
targeted women with rape and torture, while hardline Islamists have
stripped them of rights in rebel-held territory.

“The Syrian woman is a weapon of war, subjected to abductions
and rape by the regime and other groups,” a Syrian women’s rights
campaigner said.

Further
analysis shows that three of the five Arab Spring countries
(Yemen, Syria, Egypt) are now in the top five worst countries in
the Arab world for women’s rights. Some may have hoped for the Arab
Spring, which began almost three years ago, to usher in a new and
better environment for Arab women. Unfortunately, this has yet to
be realized.  

According to a survey of gender experts published
by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Egypt is the worst country
in the Arab world when it comes to women’s rights. Saudi Arabia,

where women are not allowed to travel abroad without
permission, drive, or open a bank account, came in two places ahead
of Egypt.

The survey cites high levels of harassment, genital mutilation,
and trafficking as some of the factors contributing to Egypt’s
place on the list.

From the
Thomson Reuters Foundation:

Sexual harassment, high rates of female genital cutting and a
surge in violence and Islamist feeling after the Arab Spring
uprisings have made Egypt the worst country in the Arab world to be
a woman, a poll of gender experts showed on Tuesday.

Discriminatory laws and a spike in trafficking also contributed
to Egypt’s place at the bottom of a ranking of 22 Arab states, the
Thomson Reuters Foundation survey found.

According to the Thomson Reuters Foundation article, an April
United Nations report found that 99.3 percent of women and girls
are the subject of sexual harassment in Egypt. The article also
cites the claim, made by UNICEF, that 91 percent of Egyptian women
and girls are subjected to genital mutilation.

That the experts polled believe that Egypt is a worse Arab
country to be a woman in than Syria, where a brutal civil war is
being waged, is shocking. While Egypt has yet to descend into full
blown civil war, recent events such as last summer’s coup and the
military-backed government’s crackdown on supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood have not contributed to stability or the safety of
Egyptian women and girls. More from the Thomson Reuters
Foundation:

Syria’s civil war has had a devastating impact on women at home
and in refugee camps across borders, where they are vulnerable to
trafficking, forced and child marriage and sexual violence, experts
said.

Rights groups say forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have
targeted women with rape and torture, while hardline Islamists have
stripped them of rights in rebel-held territory.

“The Syrian woman is a weapon of war, subjected to abductions
and rape by the regime and other groups,” a Syrian women’s rights
campaigner said.

Further
analysis shows that three of the five Arab Spring countries
(Yemen, Syria, Egypt) are now in the top five worst countries in
the Arab world for women’s rights. Some may have hoped for the Arab
Spring, which began almost three years ago, to usher in a new and
better environment for Arab women. Unfortunately, this has yet to
be realized.