Abstract
The production of prostheses using conventional methods or advanced technologies makes it
unaffordable for people living in developing communities. Since the Fablab revolution and
due to the collaborative open source movement, numerous rapid product development
technologies were invented. The idea of these movements is to provide widespread access to
modern means for sustainable invention and to ensure distributed value creation. This
research study was to evaluate suitable rapid product technologies for value creation in
developing communities, primarily for the production of prostheses. Open source
technologies were used to fabricate prosthetic ears. These prototypes were evaluated in
terms of cost, time and material consumption. The accuracy of these more affordable open
source technologies were also critically analysed, after developing the ears in a few hours.
The results revealed that open source technologies can be used for distributed prosthesis
production.