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Invictus Blue named top local agency at D-AWARDS 2025, beats global giants with 13 wins

Invictus Blue named top local agency at D-AWARDS 2025, beats global giants with 13 wins

Yahoo5 hours ago

KUALA LUMPUR, June 17 – Invictus Blue has been ranked the second overall agency at the D-AWARDS 2025, making it the highest-placed local integrated agency in a competition largely dominated by international networks.
The Malaysian-owned agency took home 13 awards across multiple categories, including search, e-commerce, B2B, social, data, innovation, audio and digital out-of-home (DOOH), solidifying its reputation as a leading player in the digital media space.
'We've never seen our independence as a limitation — instead, we've embraced it as our greatest strength,' said Jo Yau, Group CEO of Invictus Blue, in a statement here.
'It's proof that Malaysian-born talent, tech, and thinking can rival the best in the world.'
'Our aim has always been clear: nurture local talent, empower them with the right tools, and build campaigns that move the needle for clients,' added Shi Yen, Group Head of Strategy.
Established over three decades ago, Invictus Blue is a fully independent agency staffed entirely by Malaysian professionals and suppliers, contributing directly to the local economy.
The agency emphasised that its business model is both patriotic and strategic, designed to enhance national resilience and reduce exposure to global trade uncertainties.
Its legacy includes developing talent who have gone on to lead top international agencies in Malaysia, underscoring its influence within the country's marketing and media industry.
'For over 31 years, we've stayed true to our founding belief — that a Malaysian agency can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best in the world, without losing its soul,' said its president Keith Miranda.
The D-AWARDS, organised by the Malaysian Digital Association, is regarded as one of the country's most prestigious digital accolades, recognising excellence, innovation and impact in digital marketing.

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In Turbulent Times, Consider 'Strategic Subtraction'
In Turbulent Times, Consider 'Strategic Subtraction'

Harvard Business Review

timean hour ago

  • Harvard Business Review

In Turbulent Times, Consider 'Strategic Subtraction'

Today, companies around the world face increasing economic and business uncertainty thanks to the volatile geopolitical environment and the rise of AI. In challenging contexts like this, it's tempting for business leaders to engage in ' subtractive ' tactics, such as cutting costs, streamlining operations, and eliminating waste. To be sure, subtractive actions can be a powerful way of dealing with emerging situations where resources are tight. However, they're shortsighted if the goal is only to improve efficiency at the cost of other objectives, such as resilience and visibility. Rather than simply using subtractive tactics to make indiscriminate cuts, strategic subtraction can help you innovate in a way that positions your organization to withstand the tumult and even rebound. This article introduces a 'triple test' to help leaders gauge how any subtractive move will affect three essential performance goals: efficiency, resilience, and prominence. We then map out six distinct subtractive transformations you can apply to meet all three objectives in concert. The Triple Test for Subtractive Strategies The effective use of subtraction requires a holistic approach that considers multiple performance dimensions beyond efficiency. Begin by asking, 'How can we innovate in turbulent times by subtracting to improve efficiency, strengthen resilience, and elevate our prominence?' For any innovation to thrive in 2025's complex landscape, the use of subtraction must include three interrelated business performance goals: Efficiency: Minimizing resources, time, and effort Resilience: Adapting to disruptions and maintaining core functionality Prominence: Ensuring visibility and appeal to stakeholders Relentlessly slimming a system for pure efficiency can leave it brittle and invisible, eroding long-term value instead of creating it. For example, when firms pursued 'just-in-time' inventory as the ultimate cost saver, many discovered during the Covid-19 shock that a penny shaved off warehousing was quickly lost to plant shutdowns, empty shelves, and public frustration when the fragile networks snapped. It was evidence that efficiency unsupported by resilience invites operational paralysis and revenue loss. A starker lesson came from Boeing. Many years of aggressive cost-cutting on the 737 Max program trimmed design hours and testing budgets. However, the subsequent crashes created more than $20 billion in direct costs and torpedoed decades of brand equity, showing how neglecting trust, reputation, and stakeholder confidence can turn short-term savings into an existential bill. Subtraction that doesn't pass the full triple test of efficiency, resilience, and prominence can turn today's lean victory into tomorrow's catastrophic liability. Six Core Subtractive Transformations So, how can businesses leaders go beyond efficiency improvements and use subtraction to innovate? Our experience in helping over 100 companies and organizations identify innovation opportunities in turbulent times suggests six distinct ways to apply subtractive thinking while balancing efficiency, resilience, and prominence. These can be applied to processes, systems, products, and services: Elimination: Remove components, steps, or options entirely This involves complete or selective removal of elements that no longer serve essential functions. Elimination can target entire components, specific process steps, low-value options, unnecessary rules, or redundant handoffs. For example, when IKEA finally discontinued its globally iconic paper catalog in 2021, it removed an entire cost-intensive print channel. This action saved the company an estimated 33,000 tons of paper each year. Efficiency rose through lower production and distribution spend; resilience improved because all product storytelling now updates instantly on digital platforms; and the move burnished prominence by signaling a decisive sustainability stance that resonated with younger shoppers. Substitution: Replace complex elements with simpler alternatives This involves swapping out complicated components, processes, or systems with simpler alternatives that serve the same core function more elegantly. An example is Rwanda's national health service, which replaced unreliable mountain-road couriers with U.S.-based drone startup Zipline's battery-powered drones in 2016 to address blood-delivery issues in rural areas. A 2022 study in The Lancet Global Health reported a 67% cut in expired blood units as a result. The light, all-electric fleet required less labor and fuel (boosting efficiency), eliminated the need to traverse hazardous flooded roads (resilience), and the move elevated the country's global reputation for healthcare innovation (prominence). Consolidation: Combine multiple functions into integrated solutions This encompasses both compression of processes and integration of multiple functions, components, or touchpoints into unified systems that deliver the same value with fewer moving parts. For instance, Estonia's e-Residency rolls multiple bureaucratic tasks into a single digital ID. Using this system, entrepreneurs worldwide can launch and run an EU-based company entirely online with one smartcard login. Paperless filings reduce administrative burdens (efficiency), a cryptographically secure backbone guards continuity (resilience), and the program earns Estonia prominence by positioning it as a tiny nation punching far above its weight in digital governance. Hiding: Conceal complexity while keeping it accessible Organizations can lighten cognitive load—without sacrificing functionality—by selectively hiding complexity in everyday workflows, processes, and products. Tuck away non-essential elements from the primary interface while preserving access when needed. For example, an employee-onboarding portal might reveal only the next required step while keeping full policy documents accessible with a single click. Or consider an AI-powered transcription and collaboration tool. Its 'Highlight' feature masks 100% of the transcript until you need it. The AI meeting tool now autogenerates a bite-sized summary from user highlights, tucking the verbatim transcript beneath a single click. Teams spend less time scrolling (efficiency), the records are preserved for audits (resilience), and the feature positions Otter as a user-centric productivity champion (prominence). Pausing: Temporarily suspend system components Pausing involves strategically suspending features, processes, or services that can be reactivated when conditions change instead of eliminating them altogether. For example, using Netflix's one-click ' Pause Membership,' subscribers can freeze billing for up to three months instead of cancelling outright. This mini-sabbatical saves churn and winback costs (efficiency), keeps account data intact for seamless reactivation (resilience), and signals empathy toward customers that distinguishes Netflix in the subscription wars (prominence). Abstraction: Create interface layers that shield users from complexity This involves building simplified interfaces that translate user inputs into complex backend operations, making sophisticated systems accessible without requiring users to understand the underlying intricacies. AWS abstracts complex infrastructure management, allowing developers to focus on deployment without dealing with physical servers (efficiency) while accelerating innovation (resilience). The platform's simplified interface masks enormous backend complexity, positioning AWS as the go-to solution for scalable computing (prominence). How to Make Subtraction a Default Strategy Leaders can make subtraction a core capability by adopting a few practical strategies—not in isolation, but as part of a broader shift toward doing better by doing less: Build subtraction into core processes Rather than treating subtraction as a one-off decision, it should be embedded into how teams plan and prioritize. Leaders can introduce 'stop-doing' reviews alongside traditional goal-setting exercises. In these reviews, teams examine their workflows, tools, and deliverables and identify what no longer adds value. Elimination helps cut extraneous steps that contribute little to outcomes, while consolidation removes unnecessary handoffs or approval loops. Hiding can be used to remove low-value offerings or services that confuse customers or dilute strategic focus. By building these forms of subtraction into annual or quarterly planning, organizations improve efficiency and maintain strategic alignment without expanding complexity. Introduce subtractive design challenges Subtractive design challenges shift problem-solving away from accumulation and toward essential value. Rather than asking teams how to improve a process by adding new elements, ask how the same result can be achieved with fewer steps, features, or constraints. Consolidation allows teams to condense workflows into fewer steps without loss of quality. Substitution invites smaller, more elegant solutions that are easier to use and maintain. Abstraction encourages replacing complex interfaces with simpler alternatives. Each of these approaches supports efficiency by reducing operational drag. They also support resilience, since simpler systems are less prone to failure and easier to troubleshoot. Design challenges make subtraction a creative constraint rather than a limiting one. Celebrate subtraction done well Subtraction is frequently overlooked, which makes its benefits easy to ignore. Leaders can encourage recognition by asking teams not only to log what they've stopped doing, but also to celebrate that as an achievement. This simple habit turns subtraction into an acknowledged source of value worthy of praise. Techniques such as elimination and pausing help make these removals deliberate accomplishments. Eliminating a redundant task can improve efficiency by reducing time wasted and deserves recognition as a meaningful contribution. Pausing low-impact projects keeps future options open while concentrating on current efforts—another strategic decision worth celebrating. Recognizing and honoring subtraction reinforces the idea that removal with strategic intent is a sign of progress, not neglect. Using Gen AI to Support Subtractive Transformation Generative AI tools can help you identify subtractive opportunities that humans might miss. For example, for illustrative purposes, we prompted Google Gemini 2.5 and Claude 4 to craft the following subtractive ideas for a large healthcare provider in India using the six approaches described above: 'Generate actionable subtractive-innovation ideas for [Company Name] that deliver equal or better value with fewer steps, lower cost, or less complexity while simultaneously maintaining or boosting resilience and maintaining or improving prominence/visibility. For each of [the six approaches], suggest at least one concrete idea.' The output has been lightly edited for clarity: Elimination: Eliminate physical outpatient follow-ups for stable chronic conditions using teleconsultations to boost patient convenience (efficiency), ensure care continuity (resilience), and position [Company] as a tech-forward provider (prominence). Consolidation: Consolidate patient touchpoints (appointments, reports, payments, pre-assessment) into a single mobile app to streamline the patient journey (efficiency), centralize communication (resilience), and enhance digital accessibility (prominence). Substitution: Replace traditional paper-based patient intake with voice-activated digital forms, reducing data entry errors (efficiency), improving record accuracy (resilience), and showcasing innovation leadership (prominence). Hiding: Implement smart triage systems that hide complexity from patients while ensuring they reach appropriate care levels, reducing wait times (efficiency), maintaining care quality (resilience), and improving patient satisfaction (prominence). Pausing: Introduce flexible appointment scheduling that allows patients to pause and reschedule appointments without penalty, reducing no-shows (efficiency), maintaining doctor–patient relationships (resilience), and demonstrating patient-centric care (prominence). Abstraction: Create a single patient portal that abstracts all healthcare interactions behind a unified interface, simplifying access (efficiency), ensuring continuity across services (resilience), and positioning [Company] as a digitally advanced provider (prominence). By explicitly directing the AI model to consider subtractive options of various types, organizations can overcome the human tendency to add and discover more elegant solutions that balance multiple performance goals beyond just efficiency. . . . In an era when every competitor is racing to add more features, channels, data, and spend, the real differentiator is the courage to remove. Subtraction is neither austerity nor minimalism; it's strategic design. By carving away the non-essential, leaders create the white space where breakthroughs can grow and position their organizations to be first off-the-blocks when the rebound arrives.

Business travel in the age of the Trump tariffs
Business travel in the age of the Trump tariffs

Travel Weekly

timean hour ago

  • Travel Weekly

Business travel in the age of the Trump tariffs

Charlene Leiss is president of Flight Centre Travel Group, Americas, where she oversees a vast network of companies that includes flagship business travel divisions Corporate Traveler and FCM Travel. We at Flight Centre Travel Group acknowledge that while President Trump's trade tariffs pose challenges, they also highlight the necessity of sustained global business travel and the opportunities they give for businesses big and small. The long history of economic growth and trade goes hand in hand with the movement of people across borders. For businesses, the answer lies in maintaining robust travel strategies to explore new markets, build and grow international relationships and negotiate mutually beneficial agreements. The travel management industry is well aware of the apprehensions among both international traders and companies due to the recent tariffs introduced by President Trump. These tariffs, aimed at protecting domestic industries, potentially and inadvertently create barriers to international trade and cooperation. But business travel worldwide is the key to mitigating these barriers and unlocking new markets. By enabling direct engagement with foreign partners, businesses can navigate many tariff complexities, explore alternative sourcing options and diversify their market presence. Flourishing markets in Southeast Asia and Africa, for example, can now be seen as opportunity regions for U.S. corporations, especially as American businesses currently face heightened tariffs with Chinese goods. But through strategic business travel, companies large and small can identify new suppliers in countries less affected by the tariffs, building new trade routes that benefit both the American economy and emerging economies in these regions. Companies looking to survive and thrive in the new trade tariff world may well respond to the uncertainty by forging new relationships and investing in corporate travel to offset challenges in the U.S., as managed travel becomes a key cog in the machine of driving new market opportunities and collaboration across the globe. Business travel has played a pivotal role in economic development for centuries, with the only constant being change and opportunity - President Trump's new global tariffs are no different and offers both - where international borders can be lucrative new avenues rather than obstacles. The historical need for corporate travel -- and the more recent requirement for managed business travel -- is mirrored today by those globetrotting to not only win new business and bid for contracts but to build relationships, negotiate contracts, and attend meetings, events, and conferences. Today, the link between business travel and economic growth is undeniable. In an age where AI is playing an ever-increasing role in multiple industries, the connections people are able to create through in-person interactions can't be understated. Who would sign a multimillion-dollar deal over a Zoom or Teams meeting? Business travel opens a gateway to understanding the local business environment, while ensuring compliance with regional regulations and tailoring products to meet local demands. As a travel management company, we are committed to supporting enterprises in navigating this complex landscape, ensuring that business travel continues to be a formidable driver of economic success and global cooperation and providing the gateway to thrive in 2025. _______________________________ Travel Weekly accepts opinion pieces on subjects of interest to the travel industry and, most importantly, to travel advisors. Forums should be 550 words and must be exclusive to Travel Weekly; no part of the writing can have been published anywhere else. Forums must not be self-promotional and should be submitted with the understanding that Travel Weekly reserves the right to edit the content for length, style, spelling, clarity, structure, etc. Submissions, along with a high-resolution headshot and a short bio, should be emailed to editor in chief Arnie Weissmann and deputy managing editor Gerry Bourbeau.

Clothing, Shampoo And Robotic Feeders: Products For Accessibility
Clothing, Shampoo And Robotic Feeders: Products For Accessibility

Forbes

time2 hours ago

  • Forbes

Clothing, Shampoo And Robotic Feeders: Products For Accessibility

Most people don't think about it while roaming supermarket aisles or browsing through online offerings, but for those with accessibility challenges, questions persist: Can I operate this stove with only one hand? Will this button-down shirt accommodate my stoma tube? How will I be able to tell the detergent from the fabric softener? The innovators below collaborate with people with wide ranges of sensory and physical disabilities to design products that address their community's unique needs. Refreshable tactile text and sunglasses that connect you to sighted guides are particularly promising for the blind community. Courtesy of Humanware Ever since braille was invented in 1824, it came almost exclusively in the form of raised dimples on paper that were slow to read and a fortune to print. What about a kind of Kindle for braille, where thousands of dots could appear, then be read, and then automatically refresh into a whole new set of lines? Meet the Monarch, a portable tablet from Humanware with a 10-line matrix of 3,840 pins that rise and disappear to create braille characters, pictures and even mathematical curves from its graphing calculator. (How about a nice game of chess?) The user can jump to a specific page of a book, and an optional external monitor allows others—think teachers—to follow exactly what the user is reading. And while some in the blind community scoff at the Monarch's $18,000 sticker price and the notion that its primary market is schools, it's worth noting that financial calculators cost thousands of dollars when they appeared in the 1960s, before evolving into an affordable consumer device. There are refreshable braille readers—like Humanware's, where pins rise from a surface to create strings of words, and then bing! get replaced by new ones. And special printers have long output single sheets with raised solid lines and curves, such as a triangle or map of the U.S. that blind and low-vision people can follow with their fingers. Inventivio's two devices merge the best of both—and also add audio that narrates what the student or professional is touching. A portable one for younger students, which relies on printed sheets, can help teach multiplication tables ('Find 7 times 8') and that map of the U.S. ('That's Arizona … California … Oregon …') without an aide or parent over their shoulder. A desktop professional model boasts 10,000 densely-packed pins that can refresh to present significant portions of, say, graphs and spreadsheets. 'In the blind world, we have two major problems—one is unemployment, and the second issue is the learning opportunities in school are far fewer for blind people,' says Klaus Hars, Inventivio's co-founder. 'We want to solve both problems.' A climbing prodigy at age 11, Hugh Herr lost both of his lower legs in an ice climbing accident at 17 and received his first prostheses. "I was just shocked by the lack of technological sophistication," he says. "They were passive, without sensing or any computational intelligence." The self-described poor student enrolled in a local college to retake basic physics and math courses. In two years, he was studying at the graduate level, then designing his own prosthetics, and was eventually able to climb better than he had before the accident. "I fell in love with this idea of technology augmenting human capacity," he says. Now, he co-leads the Yang Center for Bionics at M.I.T. and designs biomechatronic prostheses that people can control with their own musculature and nerves, just like their original limbs—and even provide real feeling as feedback via carefully crafted bundles of the owners' own muscles, skin and nerves. His designs have been licensed by medical manufacturers, and are widely known as the first-ever natural human gait using his bionic limbs. Courtesy of Meta The partnership between Meta and Ray-Ban on the what are called Ray-Ban Meta glasses has had a dramatic impact on the blind and low-vision community—so much so that they are the only dual members of the Accessibility 100. The glasses discreetly include a 12 megapixel camera, open-ear audio and Meta's AI. Blind and low-vision people report using them to identify money they're holding, sort their mail, find bathrooms and check that clothes match. "All of these day-to-day things that people take for granted," says Maxine Williams, Meta's vice president of accessibility and engagement. "The engagement has been astounding." Ray-Ban (owned by Luxottica Group) contributes the lightweight, fashion-forward look that Williams says the community raves about. "Style really matters. In fact, in some ways it matters even more because people sort of don't want to be singled out." Recent software improvements are providing more detailed views and voice feedback to surroundings and user questions. If the descriptions aren't enough, a partnership with Be My Eyes (a member of the Accessibility 100) allows the user to share their live video with a human volunteer, who describes whatever the camera sees. Nike designed aerodynamic bodysuits for Paralympic athletes as far back as the 1980s, and today embraces universal design, where products from inception are built to serve all people, not just those with disabilities. FlyEase sneakers were originally designed for a single athlete with cerebral palsy, but the no-laces and slip-in ease also appealed to anyone in a hurry. What started as a successful zip-up-the-back variation of the LeBron 8 sneakers spread into a wide variety of sports lines (including the Air Zoom UNVRS, a cheeky checkered court shoe that opened with a back flap that looked, and was colored red like, a tongue.) "We're all TABs: temporarily abled bodies," says Tobie Hatfield, Nike's senior director of athlete innovation. "Whether through an unfortunate accident, disease or old age, we all become less able. Some just get there a little bit earlier. That puts us all in the same boat—so let's make sure that we have products accessible to everybody in the boat." Courtesy of Obi Robot So many disabilities leave a person unable to feed themselves, from Parkinson's and arm amputation to quadriplegia and cerebral palsy. The Obi provides what it calls 'independent eating,' with a compact robotic arm that scoops up food from four different bowls and smoothly spoons it into the user's mouth—allowing them to sit at a table with others and eat with no assistance. At just seven pounds it can be easily brought to a restaurant or school. And while the device's sticker price is $8,625, insurance, schools, and the Veterans Administration can drastically or even eliminate the cost. (It also can defray expensive caregiver hours.) Families have been known to use GoFundMe campaigns to pay for an Obi in a matter of hours. Few companies are praised more than OXO for universal design—the creation of products designed to serve everyone, regardless of any disability—found in its line of more than 500 different kitchen gadgets. Containers don't need to be wrenched open; they open with a soft finger tap on the top. Tongs can be opened and closed with one hand. From stove-burner lighters to its new pull-out shelf for a clunky under-the-counter coffee maker, the company's products simply make things easier, whether you have only one hand or, as one company executive put it, 'a hand covered in barbecue sauce.' Such products don't make distinctions between disabled or non-disabled users—they're just highly usable products. Primark, the Ireland-based fashion company with hundreds of stores worldwide, is the industry leader in designing 'adaptive clothing'—items with features that make dressing easier and provide fashion to boot. For those with low dexterity, snaps replace buttons and zippers clasp magnetically. For people in wheelchairs, pants can be pulled on, zipped on the side, and cinched by pulling a draw string. (And trench coats are cut short so they don't drag on the floor.) And for people with a stoma—a hole in the abdomen where waste leaves the body through a tube—tops are made with a discreet, easily-accessed opening. All of these items are made in a variety of colors and fabrics, and for similar prices as non-adaptive products. Courtesy of Sam Latif Go to the supermarket, find the laundry aisle, close your eyes, and good luck picking out—literally feeling around for—what you need. To that end, P&G has developed its own raised, tactile icons on packaging that blind and low-vision people can feel to immediately distinguish, among others, different types of laundry detergent, shampoo and conditioner and body wash. The company has also pioneered the use of NaviLens QR-type codes through which cellphones can easily find any razor or feminine product without personal assistance. P&G even makes its icons open-source in the hope that they become universal. 'We're not just trying to do it alone,' says Sam Latif, P&G's Company Accessibility Leader, who is blind herself. 'Doing it on a few products is not as impactful as the industry doing it together.' P&G's accessibility innovations extend to address disabilities like arthritis and limb differences, where making containers easier to open has traditionally conflicted with child-safety concerns. Children with disabilities can require special equipment at school, including adaptive seating, desks, standing devices and playground toys. In nearly every district, if you look at the brand name, you'll see Rifton Equipment. A spinoff of a traditional playground equipment company founded in the 1950s, the company listens closely to therapists and parents, general manager Joe Keiderling says. A recent example: Therapists said the company's tricycle, which featured protective straps and supports, still required equipment (and 20 minutes) to lift some children onto it, take them off if the seat needed adjustment, and then lift them back again, often several times. So Rifton worked with therapists to make the seat adjustable, even with 150 pounds of child on it. Although items purchased for children to use at home are often covered by Medicaid, state-by-state benefits guidelines often cause long paperwork delays. "We meet parents who are just exhausted by the effort it takes to fight for their kids,' Keiderling says, 'and get the equipment they need." Courtesy of Mike Nejat The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year featured dozens of companies—from sprawling conglomerates to startups—hailing what they described as disability-solving products and features. But few impressed accessibility experts more than Sony and how its televisions, gaming systems and cameras are routinely packed with best-in-class features. Content played through TVs and soundbars can have human voices isolated and amplified to make dialogue clearer, while gamers can buy special PlayStation controllers designed for different disabilities. For someone with impaired vision but a healthy retina—such as the cloudiness caused by cataracts—an attachment to Sony cameras can project onto the retina a sharper idea of what's in the viewfinder. Says Mike Nejat, Sony Electronics' vice president of engineering, 'These features are not just for the disabled community—it's also the aging community, where their vision and hearing are changing as they get older.' With about 32 million mobile, landline and cable subscribers in the U.S., Spectrum has the nation's largest such customer base—but the company impacts people with disabilities beyond their own subscribers. For example, say that a blind or low-vision person is listening to an episode of CSI; they can hear the dialogue but not facial expressions, quiet action, camera panning, and so on. Its Spectrum Access app—free to anyone, not just paying subscribers—provides audio description of what's happening on-screen. Owned by Charter Communications, Spectrum has advanced how users communicate with set-top boxes, including spoken menus and a remote with large tactile buttons, some dedicated to launching specific accessibility features. 'Over one-half of our [accessibility] team are persons with disabilities who use assistive technology,' says Steve Raymond, Charter's VP of Accessibility. 'They're very native and very skilled. Everything we do that's customer facing, and even internally, we make sure it works for everyone.' Trexo's exoskeletons help kids with cerebral palsy and other disabilities walk again. "As a mechatronics engineer, who doesn't dream of building Iron Man?" asks Manmeet Maggu, Trexo founder and CEO, whose nephew in India has CP. Most exoskeletons on the market are made for adults, can't be scaled down due to large backpacks full of batteries, and come with breathtaking price tags of up to $500,000. Maggu set out to change that, founding Trexo in 2016. "We built a prototype here in Canada, put it into a suitcase and flew to Delhi, assembled it up … and it did not work," he says. "I remember waking up the next morning looking at videos of SpaceX rockets blowing up to give myself inspiration." Several iterations later, his nephew took his first steps. Now, hundreds of kids have taken more than 100 million steps with Trexo exoskeletons. The company is restructuring to obtain Medicare coverage for its devices, which will make them more widely available for children in need.

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