Gary Kurek

2008 ASTech Alberta Science Fair Foundation Award recipient

The accomplishments of 16-year-old Gary Kurek are quite amazing says Dr. Peter Hackett, who describes Gary’s recent achievements as “the embodiment of how the desire to help someone can lead to tremendous innovation.”

Gary combined his love of science and his business acumen to create a revolutionary solution for someone close to him – his grandmother.

Gary started his latest project when his grandmother, refusing to give up an active lifestyle, could not find a walker that would enable her to do the things she was used to doing. He found ways to expand the limitations of wheelchairs and walkers, which would enable users to experience a life closer to what they were used to before using the devices. He built controls similar to those on an electric wheelchair and combined them with a walker base to come up with the Rollator that acts as a type of wheelchair / walker hybrid. The device provides the user with assisted movement as well as wheelchair-like mobility.

“By combining the functions of a walker and a wheelchair into one mobile assistive device, I was able to offer more functionality that is currently out there,” he explains. “And I made it more versatile and smaller. And it’s less expensive than what’s out there.”

Gary has had much success with the Rollator so far. Some of his most recent accomplishments include attending the Edmonton regional science fair and was asked to represent Alberta at the Canada Wide Science Fair in Ottawa where he received a silver medal in the Intermediate Engineering category. Gary was the winner of the Peer Innovation Award with the project best applicable to a patent.

That’s quite an accumulation of accomplishments for such a young innovator and Ingenuity hopes that this is just the beginning of Gary’s entrepreneurial success. He says that he’s happy to lend his expertise and suggestions to other like-minded inventive minds. Keep it up Gary – we like your spirit!