Kevin Carroll, MS, CP, FAAOP, vice president of prosthetics for Hanger Clinic, and Dan Strzempka, CPO, area practice manager for Hanger Clinic, will receive Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. They will be honored at a luncheon on April 27.
These awards, presented in association with Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen and the Disruptor Foundation, reflect Tribeca Film Festival’s continued commitment to advances in progressive thinking. It aims to showcase applications of and advancements in disruptive innovation theory that have spread beyond the original technology and industrial realms.
Carroll and Strzempka worked with engineers to develop WintersGel, a prosthetic liner developed for a tail-less dolphin at Clearwater Marine Aquarium. WintersGel is now used to provide comfort and gentle adhesion for amputees.
Honorees will receive Disruptor Awards nicknamed Maslow’s Silver Hammer, in honor of psychologist Abe Maslow, who created the famous hierarchy of human needs. One of Maslow’s most famous quotes, “When your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail,” embodies the spirit of the awards and symbolizes the need for new approaches to old problems.
