Pixed is one of the 4 social undertakings that is part of the portfolio of the Wiese Foundation Entrepreneur Fund. The company dedicates itself to the research, creation and development of inclusive technologies for the manufacture of personalized limb prostheses. It also offers psychological accompaniment for the inclusion of persons with a physical disability at school, at work and in society.
Ricardo Rodríguez Torres, one of the leaders of this undertaking, granted an interview for Wiese Foundation where he talked more about how the pandemic has impacted his company, the support that the Entrepreneur Fund has meant in this context and how they have adapted to the change.
Pixed in the context of the pandemic
At the start of the pandemic, says Ricardo Rodríguez, Pixed, as a social company, interested in the wellbeing of people, looked for the way to continue to provide help, given that they had to stop, temporarily, the in-person appointments that they offered in order to be able to take the measurements of the prostheses that were to be made. In this context, they started to create biosafety devices, but they were destined to be taken as donations mainly to hospitals.
In the manufacture of devices such as face shields, Pixed made alliances with companies in order to have the financial liquidity that they needed in order to maintain themselves during the pandemic.
While their machines manufactured these devices, the team focused their energies on developing and continuing to research new prosthetic technologies until, only last August, they were able to resume the in-person appointments, under the strictest biosafety protocols. This month, they also restarted the scheduling of deliveries of Pixed prosthetic and bionic products.
Adapting to change
The process of adaptation was vital for Pixed in this context, and they achieved it thanks to the fact that, by being a technology company, they found many ways to adapt without being affected exponentially. Thanks to the technology, in April it started conducting virtual appointments and even creating new devices.
Regarding the new technologies from Pixed, Ricardo Rodríguez told us that the bionic limb prostheses that they create are the first ones made in Peru and Latin America. These are self-adjustable prostheses developed with microcontrollers, fiber optics, among other materials made in the country. Also, the co-creator of Pixed tells us that they have already delivered the first prosthesis, whose results exceeded the expectations, both of its team and its user. He added that they are already developing the next version, which is a bionic prosthesis above the elbow, which is scheduled to be delivered between January and February of 2021.
The support from the Entrepreneur Fund
As a social company that is part of the Portfolio of the Entrepreneur Fund of Wiese Foundation, Ricardo Rodríguez commented that having the funds at the beginning of the pandemic is what allowed them to keep up with all that was planned. Thus, they took advantage of the first month in order to plan the strategies that they were going to take into account, so they started to work on biosafety equipments that made it possible for the company to keep moving forward. The Pixed company stopped many promising plans in 2020 because of the pandemic, but it plans to resume them in 2021.
Among those plans, there are collaborations with related companies in Chile, Honduras and the United Kingdom, as well as concluding alliances with physicians, clinics and hospitals in the country in order to be able to work hand in hand with them. If you wish to learn more about the Entrepreneur Fund, we invite you to click on the following link:
