Every prosthetic arm begins with a socket, the cup that joins the device to what remains of the limb, and no two are alike. Making one has always meant a plaster cast, a skilled technician and hours of hand shaping, often at a clinic far from home, with the finished piece shipped back. Laura Echeverri Giraldo, an industrial designer and biomedical engineer from Pereira who studied at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, thought the phone in everyone's pocket could do the first part. Her system, Encaja, is for people who have lost a forearm below the elbow. A few small markers go on the limb, the phone captures a 3D scan, and software built on parametric design turns that scan into a socket shaped to the person, ready for a local 3D printer and laser cutter. Design work that took about eight hours now takes roughly one. In September the James Dyson Award named Encaja Colombia's national winner for 2026, and Carlos Gonzalez of Colombia One told the story this week.

Read the full story: Colombian designer wins 2026 James Dyson Award with prosthetic socket, by Carlos Gonzalez, Colombia One.

What makes it more than clever is where the making happens. "Rather than relying on a model in which custom sockets are produced at a single location and shipped elsewhere, Encaja makes the design files available for local manufacturing," Echeverri said. A maker space, a university workshop or a small clinic with a printer can turn out the socket in town, and the design is modular, so tools can be swapped on and off: a fork for the evening meal, a set of bicycle handles for the morning ride. It is still a prototype, and the award's prize money goes toward the next version. On 14 October the Dyson engineers name their international top twenty from 28 countries' winners, and the global winners follow on 4 November. Whatever happens there, a young designer in a mid sized Colombian city has shown that the slowest part of getting an arm can be fast, local and personal.

Our short take: the full story is by Carlos Gonzalez for Colombia One (6 October 2026), with the award details from the James Dyson Award and earlier coverage by Vanguardia (24 September 2026) and Impacto TIC. Photograph: James Dyson Award, supplied press image of Encaja.