IPT is a not for profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 based in Champaign, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 with the purpose of providing affordable prosthetic arms to amputees in the developing world. The organization is made up of engineering students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

.

History

IPT was originally founded as the Illini Prosthetics Team in August 2008. The team of students was organized by Jonathan Naber, a undergraduate student in Materials Science and Engineering. Originally the group carried itself as a student organization, performing mostly research and experimental design work.

In March 2010, Jonathan Naber was awarded the 2010 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for his work as leader of the Illini Prosthetics Team.

During the summer of 2010, IPT collaborated with the Range of Motion Project

Range of Motion Project

Range of Motion Project is a Chicago, Illinois-based, 501 non-profit, providing prosthetic and orthotic care to those who do not have access to these services. It was founded in 2005 by David Krupa, CP, Eric Neufeld, CP, and Josh Kaplan...

, an international prosthetic aid organization. This collaboration allowed them to travel to Zacapa

Zacapa

Zacapa is a city in eastern Guatemala, along the Río Grande de Zacapa. It is renowned locally for its manual crafting of cigars, hard dry cheese and a flavored cake made with said cheese ....

, Guatemala

Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

 in July 2010, and field test three prototype

Prototype

A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...

prosthetic arms. The team also worked directly with several patients to learn more about the culture, and ways they could improve their prototype prosthetics.