David James Gow

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(born 1957) is the inventor of the i-Limb prosthetic hand. He was made an honorary Doctor of Science in November 2018 by the University of Edinburgh.

Biography

He was born in Dumfries in 1957 and was educated at Breconbeds School,

Kirtlebridge Kirtlebridge is a village in Dumfries and Galloway, southern Scotland. It is located north-east of Annan, north-west of Kirkpatrick-Fleming, and south of Eaglesfield. The village is located where the A74(M) motorway and the West Coast Main ...

, Annan Academy and the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. He studied Mechanical Engineering from 1975 to 1979, graduating with BSc (Honours) in Engineering Science. He then worked for a year at Ferranti (Scotland) a defence contractor in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

. In January 1981 he began a research post at the University of Edinburgh lasting until 1984 when he transferred to the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

(NHS). He managed the Rehabilitation Technology Services for NHS Lothian and was based at the SMART Centre in Edinburgh.

Career

He began a programme of research activities in the field of upper limb prosthetics. In 1998 he fitted a fellow Scot, Campbell Aird with an electrical arm prosthesis containing the world's first electrical shoulder. In 2002 he founded and spun out the first company from the NHS, Touch EMAS Ltd and became its first CEO. He invented the i-limb and ProDigits partial hand system (later i-limb digits, now i-digits). He and his team from the company (which became Touch Bionics in 2005) won the MacRobert Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the

Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine The Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) is the United Kingdom's British professional bodies, professional body and learned society for physicists, engineers and technologists within the field of medicine, founded in 1995, cha ...

and the Royal Academy of Engineering. Gow was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(CBE) in the

2014 Birthday Honours The 2014 Birthday Honours were appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part of ...

for services to upper limb prosthetics. David retired from the NHS in April 2015.

Family

He is married to Janet Brunton. His parents (both deceased) were James, and Effie (née Shankland), and he has an older sister Mary, and a younger brother, Iain. James, his father, served in the 2nd Battalion Royal Scots, and was captured by the Japanese in Hong Kong on Christmas Day 1941 - he was being transferred to Japan on the freighter '' Lisbon Maru'' when it was torpedoed and sank on the 2nd of October, 1942; he spent the remainder of the war in Japan, initially in Kobe House prisoner of war camp (Osaka #2). David is the maternal nephew of the late David Shankland, MBE, a former nursing tutor and well-known after-dinner speaker and Burns' enthusia

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20130120031346/http://www.myworldofwork.co.uk/content/i-invented-the-bionic-hand {{DEFAULTSORT:Gow, David 1957 births People from Dumfries Scottish inventors Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Living people