Selected for the 22nd 'Innovation Research and Development Grant' Sponsored by The Senshu Ikeda Bank — Simultaneously Awarded 'Excellence Award' and 'Open Innovation Award' in the ICT Category —

INOMER Inc. (Headquarters: Nara City, Nara Prefecture; CEO: Norifumi Katsura), which aims to provide "assistance of strength and skill" through wearable robots, has received the Excellence Award in the ICT category at the 22nd "Innovation Research and Development Grant"*1 sponsored by The Senshu Ikeda Bank. Additionally, the company was selected for the "Open Innovation Award," which aims to provide opportunities for collaboration toward social implementation, resulting in a double win.*2

The selected theme is "Development of a Skilled Technique Transfer Platform to Innovate Gait Rehabilitation." INOMER is developing a system and application that utilizes "inoGear HE-1," a robotic gear that reproduces the manual assistance techniques of physical therapists, and stores usage and gait data in the cloud to be leveraged as collective intelligence via AI.

The Senshu Ikeda Bank's "Innovation Research and Development Grant" is a subsidy program aimed at regional revitalization through the creation of new businesses based on advanced research and development plans that contribute to solving social and regional issues. After a selection process by external experts, INOMER was chosen for the Excellence Award in the ICT category out of 10 plans. Furthermore, it was selected for the Open Innovation Award, where supporting companies choose winners based on their own criteria, receiving recognition from Hankyu Hanshin Properties Corp. for its potential for collaboration toward social implementation.

In the field of gait rehabilitation, while "handling" by physical therapists plays a crucial role in gait support, the technique relies on experience and intuition, making reproducibility and skill transfer difficult. Utilizing this grant, INOMER aims to build a foundation that simultaneously ensures quality, improves efficiency, and facilitates skill transfer in rehabilitation by improving the system and application for storing and utilizing physical therapists' techniques and tacit knowledge as digital data, as well as conducting demonstration trials.

INOMER views this award as recognition of its challenge to achieve skill transfer and social implementation in the field of gait rehabilitation. Moving forward, the company will continue to address issues in medical and nursing care settings and aim to realize solutions that provide more people with opportunities for rehabilitation, including home use.

*1: Innovation Research and Development Grant Official Website:

https://www.sihd-bk.jp/corporation/collaboration/subsidy/innovation/

*2: Selection of Winning Plans:

https://www.sihd-bk.jp/fresh_news/0000002775/pdf/fresh.pdf