New Age of Sustainable Capitalism: Business Models to Drive Growth and Social Change (Collection), The

Jaipur Foot: Prosthetics for the Poor

At age fourteen, Sudha Chandran, an aspiring dancer, lost her right foot and part of her leg in a car accident. Devastated and convinced she would never walk again, let alone dance, she spent several months on crutches. Then one day in 1984, she read about Jaipur Foot.

A prosthetic foot in the United States costs on average $8,000. This cost is far beyond the means of the poor in developing countries,¹ and even many of the poor in the United States.² As many as four billion people, in India and the rest of the world, live in poverty on less than two dollars per day. When someone loses a limb, the inability to work is catastrophic, often for a whole family. The Jaipur Foot is tailored specifically to the lifestyles ...