A young South African engineer, who has designed what she says is the country’s first affordable prosthetic knee, says there is a massive gap in the local market for less costly options, reports The Citizen.
The innovative Amohetsoe Shale, a Stellenbosch University Master’s student in Engineering (MEng Sc) and the founder and CEO of NAVU, a company that designs and produces affordable, high-performing prosthetic knees for amputees, chalked up numerous awards last year 2025, including a major funding grant through student entrepreneurship initiatives for her invention of a passive polycentric prosthetic knee.
The knee is “10 times cheaper” than any others, she told delegates at the inaugural Innovation Week 2026 conference in Johannesburg last week, attended by investors, field experts, operators and policy shapers.
She said she had made it her mission to pursue a knee prosthetic which would make life easier for South Africans battling with disabilities.
“Why should mobility be a privilege?” she said.
Her aim was to design a solution that allows functioning and quality knee joints for patients and restores their freedom, function and dignity at a cost-effective price.
Complexities
“A lot of amputees are not able to walk properly. It’s not that there’s a problem with the system, it’s the quality of components to which they have access,” she said.
While public hospitals offer a basic prosthetic, it is often not as effective in aiding amputees because the knee is one of the most complex joints in the body.
“In public hospitals you’ll get a basic prosthetic because that’s what the public sector can afford. And then in private care, you can spend up to R200 000 per prosthesis, which is also not reachable for everyone.”
During her undergraduate research and masters, she focused on developing a prosthetic knee that is muchcheaper than what is available and far more functional than what is being provided by public hospitals.
“We were able to use different manufacturing techniques… able to take my experience in clinical, my masters and biomedical engineering, to create a really cool product.”
Identified gap
She said that the African continent does not have the capacity to spend R3m on prosthetic knees per person; the price of these products on the international market.
“Companies like Ottobock are selling microprocessor robotic knees for R1.8m per unit and so we’re not going to be their biggest concern.”
But this leaves a massive gap in accessibility on the prosthetic market for South Africans and other countries, she added.
“The question should be, why aren’t there more people personalising South Africa’s problems? Because they are our problems, right?”
The Navu prosthetic knee costs around R25 000 per unit.
Accountable
Shale said registered her company during her undergraduate year becasue she wanted to keep herself accountable for her research. “As researchers may know, research has the tendency to sit on the shelf in the hopes that a private company will pick it up and help advance the aims and objectives of the study, which was not what I wanted.”
Fortuitously, after travelling to Norway for an opportunity, she was recruited to continue her research at the University of Stellenbosch and has since been able to get her product on the market.
“Now we’re hoping to create a lot of impact for a lot more people.”
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
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SA student develops high-tech knee brace
Wits engineering students lend a hand with cheaper prosthetics