Scottish prosthetics entrepreneur recognised for creating fully body‑powered hand designed to transform life after limb loss
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK (January 23, 2023) – Metacarpal today announced that its founder, Fergal Mackie, has been named a winner in a major national Young Innovators Awards programme, recognising his work to reinvent the prosthetic hand for people living with upper‑limb difference. The award highlights Mackie’s vision for Metacarpal: to deliver a new generation of fully body‑powered prostheics hands that combine advanced functionality with everyday practicality.
Mackie, a Product Design Engineering graduate, began developing Metacarpal’s mechanical prosthetic hand after a serious wrist injury during his studies made him acutely aware of how easily hand function can be lost and how profoundly it affects daily life. Working initially from his bedroom, he created early prototypes of a hand that could be powered and controlled entirely by the user’s own body, without the need for complex electronics, with the goal of making high‑performance prosthetics more intuitive, robust and accessible.
Through Metacarpal, Mackie is focused on tackling the long‑standing problem of low adoption and abandonment of upper‑limb prosthetic devices, where many users find existing technologies too heavy, fragile, costly or difficult to control. His approach centres on ‘user‑centred’ mechanical engineering that delivers meaningful function in real‑world settings, aiming to provide prosthetic hands that people not only receive, but continue to wear and rely on every day.
The Young Innovators recognition provides Mackie and Metacarpal with targeted business support to help accelerate product development and commercial readiness. This support will contribute to advancing Metacarpal’s technology towards wider clinical use, helping to position the company as a leading Scottish innovator in next‑generation upper‑limb prosthetics.
