Made For Us

At age 17, Hugh Herr was an elite rock climber whose life was defined by the vertical world, until a mountain climbing accident fundamentally changed his trajectory.
Today, as Professor at the MIT Media Lab and co-director of the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics, his work focuses on creating bionic limbs that move and feel like natural limbs. His innovations include computer controlled artificial knees, powered ankle-foot prostheses and exoskeletons, earning him the title "Leader of the Bionic Age."
In this conversation, he shares the personal story behind his mission to design transformative and human-centred technology, and the global challenge of making prosthetics accessible to all.
You'll learn:
- What the next frontier of human augmentation looks like
- Major innovations from Hugh Herr's lab at MIT, including a groundbreaking new surgical technique
- The roadmap for creating a future with equitable, global access to advanced prosthetic technology
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About Hugh Herr
Hugh Herr is Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab, and co-leads the Yang Center for Bionics at MIT. He is creating bionic limbs that emulate the function of natural limbs. TIME Magazine coined him the "Leader of the Bionic Age" because of his revolutionary work in the emerging field of Biomechatronics - technology that marries human physiology with electromechanics.
Follow Hugh Herrr on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugh-herr-023697b/
Follow Hugh Herr on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hugh.herr/
Learn more about the Biomechatronics Group at MIT: https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/biomechatronics/overview/
Learn more about the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics: https://yangtan.mit.edu/k-lisa-yang-center-for-bionics/
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Connect with Made for Us
- Show notes and transcripts: https://made-for-us.captivate.fm/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/madeforuspodcast
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeforuspodcast/
- Newsletter: https://madeforuspodcast.beehiiv.com/

While working as a civil rights lawyer in the Obama administration, Regina “Gina” Kline kept seeing the same pattern: talented individuals with disabilities being denied access to the tools they needed to compete in the global economy.
In this episode, she shares how that realisation led her to found Enable Ventures, the first venture capital firm dedicated to closing the disability wealth gap by investing in companies at the nexus of technology and disability.
We discuss:
How Enable Ventures invests in disability-led innovation
The “original sin” behind the disability wealth gap
How the "ADA generation" is building the technology they need to compete

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About Regina Kline
Regina “Gina” Kline is the Founder and Managing Partner of Enable Ventures, the first impact venture fund dedicated to closing the disability wealth gap by investing in early-stage companies working at the nexus of technology and disability.
Investor, entrepreneur, civil rights lawyer, and thought leader, Gina has dedicated 15 years of her career to building the future of work by advancing the rights and interests of people with disabilities as innovators, entrepreneurs, workers, and consumers. Gina previously served in the Obama Administration and litigated landmark ADA cases and is nationally recognized for her legal and policy work in advancing the rights of people with disabilities. Gina is also the founder of SmartJob, an impact consultant and early-stage scout for the disability tech sector.
Follow Regina Kline on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/regina-gina-kline-b042054
Learn more about Enable Ventures: www.enableventures.vc
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Be My Eyes: the app powering a global volunteer movement for accessibility
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Connect with Made for Us
Show notes and transcripts: https://made-for-us.captivate.fm/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/madeforuspodcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeforuspodcast/
Newsletter: https://madeforuspodcast.beehiiv.com/

This week, we’re bringing you a crossover episode from Beyond 6 Seconds podcast, which features conversations with neurodivergent people from around the world.
Award-winning host Carolyn Kiel speaks with neurodivergent entrepreneurs, creators, and advocates about their lives, identities, and issues that are important to them.
In this episode, Carolyn's guest is Tiffany Hammond, author of the New York Times bestselling children’s book, A Day with No Words. The book tells the story of a Black mother and her nonspeaking autistic son who use a tablet to communicate with each other and the world around them.
We’ll be back with a new episode of Made For Us next week. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy discovering Beyond 6 Seconds and be sure to give them a follow wherever you get your podcasts.
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Learn more about Beyond 6 Seconds
Podlink: https://pod.link/1336740192
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/35483102/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beyond6seconds/
Learn more about Tiffany and her work: ADayWithNoWords.com
Learn more about World Autism Awareness Day: https://www.un.org/en/observances/autism-day
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Connect with Made for Us
Show notes and transcripts: https://made-for-us.captivate.fm/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/madeforuspodcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeforuspodcast/
Newsletter: https://madeforuspodcast.beehiiv.com/

A flaw in one of medicine's most trusted devices - the pulse oximeter - was first documented in the 1990s, then largely forgotten. It took the COVID-19 pandemic to bring it back to the forefront.
Michael Sjoding, a pulmonologist and associate professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, was treating critically ill patients during the pandemic when he noticed something that didn't add up: pulse oximeter readings were overestimating blood oxygen levels compared with arterial blood gas tests. The discrepancy wasn't random. Black patients were significantly more likely to receive inaccurate readings than White patients.
In this episode, we talk about the impact of the study Dr. Sjoding and his colleagues published in the New England Journal of Medicine, what it reveals about the design of medical devices - and why he believes this is a problem that can be solved.
We discuss:
Why pulse oximeters can produce less accurate readings in patients with darker skin - and what that means for clinical decision-making
What the pulse oximeter problem reveals about inclusive design in medicine
Why Dr. Sjoding believes his study gained traction where earlier research did not

About Michael Sjoding
Dr. Michael Sjoding is an Associate Professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on developing new computational tools to support diagnosis and identify optimal treatment for patients with lung disease. He also studies how to effectively deploy these tools to support clinical decisions at the bedside.
Read the NEJM study on racial bias in pulse oximetry measurement: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2029240
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Other episodes you might like:
How to design a fairer healthcare system
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Connect with Made for Us
Show notes and transcripts: https://made-for-us.captivate.fm/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/madeforuspodcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeforuspodcast/
Newsletter: https://madeforuspodcast.beehiiv.com/

*** Help us shape the future of Made For Us! Take our 4-minute listener survey for the chance to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card and get instant access to our curated reading list of every book ever recommended on the show: https://forms.gle/pNyrCooa23oYsaVk7 ***
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What happens when AI doesn’t understand you?
For millions of people across Africa, speaking a language that AI doesn’t recognise can be a barrier to accessing services like healthcare and participating in the digital economy.
Pelonomi Moiloa is CEO of Lelapa AI, a research and product lab building language AI for a continent with 2,000+ languages. Named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI in 2023, Pelonomi unpacks the technical and linguistic challenges she and her team are up against - from the data collection hurdles unique to oral cultures, to the compute constraints on the African continent.
In this episode, we discuss:
Why mainstream AI struggles with African languages
The creative approaches Lelapa AI is pioneering since scraping the internet or the archives isn't an option
What Pelonomi really thinks about being called one of the most influential people in AI

About Pelonomi Moiloa
Pelonomi Moiloa is CEO of Lelapa AI, a socially-grounded research and product lab driving AI for Africans by Africans. A biomedical and electrical engineer by training, Pelonomi has spent almost a decade deriving insights from data to address complex problems.
Learn more about Lelapa AI: https://lelapa.ai
Follow Lelapa AI on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lelapa-ai/
Follow Pelonomi Moiloa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pelonomi-moiloa
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Other episodes you might like:
What's in a name? When your device thinks you're a typo
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Connect with Made for Us
Show notes and transcripts: https://made-for-us.captivate.fm/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/madeforuspodcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madeforuspodcast/
Newsletter: https://madeforuspodcast.beehiiv.com/