NASHVILLE, Tennessee (December 9, 2022)—After more than five years of research and development to build the wheelchair technology company LUCI, company officials announced they were opening its platform to leading developers and research partners through a new program called LUCI Sandbox.
LUCI is a technology platform for wheelchair robotics, research, and user health made up of a combination of proprietary sensors, advanced software and a collection of patented inventions.
Sandbox makes the LUCI platform and developer tools available to select organizations and institutions, allowing them to use LUCI as a research tool to accelerate innovation. This access means they can avoid the time and resources development phases usually take and instead start with proven, effective hardware, documented safety and previously unavailable data.
“We created LUCI to solve real problems that exist for wheelchair users now, and Sandbox is another way for our team to collaborate with likeminded peers who are committed to doing the same,” said Jered Dean, cofounder and chief technology officer of LUCI. “By providing the expertise, application programming interfaces, software development kits and hardware that these partners need, we can all build to users’ needs, together. Sandbox will continue to grow, expand and bring needed change over time, dramatically accelerating what’s possible for the entire industry.”
The specifics of the program will vary slightly with each partner based on specific needs and capabilities, which will be announced in the near future. While this type of research and developer access is common in other industries, through popular developer programs like Apple Healthkit and industry, university partnerships, Sandbox claims to be the first program of its kind in power mobility.
“We’re thrilled to launch LUCI Sandbox, but the truth is, this announcement is more about formalizing a lot of the collaborative efforts we already have in place,” said Barry Dean, LUCI cofounder and CEO. “We are a company fueled by collaboration, and we’re excited to take that company-wide commitment to the next level with this important program. LUCI has recently supported at least seven different grant proposals, for example – with the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the Administration for Community Living and others – and we look forward to building even more partnerships to benefit the people who depend on power mobility.”
