Italian wheelchair hopes to bring users freedom

Bergamo : After nearly 20 years working with wheelchair-bound youngsters, Mario Vigentini wanted to revolutionise their quality of life, inventing a device that raises up users so they are face-to-face with those standing.

The Italian drew inspiration from the Segway -- the two-wheeled, self-balancing, electric vehicle that allows visitors to nip around cities without walking -- and came up with the "MarioWay", a hands-free, two-wheeled kneeling chair.

With its high seat, it allows users to do everything from ordering a coffee at a bar to plucking a book off a high shelf.

The Italian government was so impressed it proudly showed off the chair to the G7 transport ministers in June.

The aim was to create "a tool of social integration", Vigentini told AFP at his headquarters in Bergamo.

The 45-year-old found working with young people with mental and physical disabilities "an extraordinary adventure", but was disheartened by the prejudice they faced.

"At best, people approached them like a child," he said, as if because they were sitting closer to the ground they were somehow more infantile.

Racking his brains for a way to change the situation, he came up with the idea of "trying to put an ergonomic seat -- like those from the Nordic countries that were very fashionable in the 1990s -- on a Segway". 

"Nine out of ten people I talked to about this idea looked at me as if I came from another planet," he said.

But he was persuaded to take the idea to a start-up competition in Naples in 2012 -- and made it to the final.