3D-hands, hope, and humility - the story of e-Nable Poland
3DP War Journal #80
Sometimes the most transformative technologies do not change industries, but individual lives. This is a story about people who never sought recognition - yet profoundly changed the world around them.
Last week I published an article on the Bambu Lab blog which, quite unexpectedly, went viral. I described the stories of two elderly Chinese people - a woman and a man - who, as a result of an accident and an illness, ended up in wheelchairs and gradually sank into stagnation, depression, and hopelessness.
However, 3D printing and the help of other people - family members and volunteers from charitable organizations - brought them back to life!
Although returning to their old lives was no longer possible, thanks to 3D printers they redefined themselves and found a new path to self-realization.
In the article I also mentioned how desktop 3D printing makes it possible to create relatively simple applications that turn out to be life-changing for people affected by illness or accidents. I described two model projects of this kind - e-Nable, a project focused on hand prostheses, and MakeGood, a wheelchair designed for children.
Today I would like to introduce you to the first one, but in a very local edition. Because I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this before, but Anna Ślusarczyk has been co-creating the Polish branch of e-Nable for nearly 10 years. And I help her a bit with that…
But above all, I would like to introduce you to the person who created it and helped several hundred Polish children (and adults). Someone who never sought applause, fame - and certainly not money.
This is the story of Krzysztof Grandys - the president and co-founder of e-Nable Poland.
e-Nable Poland
Our shared history began in a truly unusual way. Eleven years ago - on January 25, 2015 - I published an article on my then-portal, Centrum Druku 3D (3D Printing Center), titled: “Is independent 3D printing of prostheses compliant with Polish law?”
The article was written in response to the growing media frenzy at the time around 3D-printed prosthetics. Mainstream media, as usual, published articles that were as sensational as they were foolish, presenting the topic in a distorted and detached-from-reality way.
In my usual style, I carried out a critical analysis of the issue, demonstrating that under Polish law, producing prostheses on 3D printers is highly problematic and exposes the creators to legal consequences.
A few days after publication, we received a phone call from an agitated reader. The call was answered by my wife, Anna. The reader thoroughly criticized my article, accusing me of sensationalism in the opposite direction, a complete lack of understanding of the subject, and harming a worthy cause.
That reader was Krzysztof Grandys - a physician anesthesiologist working at the children’s hospital in Prokocim (near Kraków).
For some time, Grandys had been an official e-Nable volunteer in Poland and was producing prostheses for children on a home 3D printer.
Anna engaged him in a long and substantive conversation - by no means defending my article. That conversation marked the beginning of their acquaintance, which continues to this day.
After the call ended, Anna presented all of Grandys’s counterarguments to me, but I - already a recognized figure in the Polish 3D printing industry at the time - dismissed them, blinded by my own sense of importance. The article, unchanged, is still available on Centrum Druku 3D.
However Anna continued her relationship with Krzysztof, gradually delving deeper into the topic and spontaneously starting to help him by leveraging the many contacts she had in the 3D printing industry.
We met in person and got to know each other in September 2016 during the 8th edition of the 3D Printing Days trade fair. The event became famous for setting a Guinness World Record in the category of “the tallest person printed on a 3D printer.” That person was Robert Lewandowski, measuring 3 meters and 6 centimeters.
In any case, it was under these record-breaking circumstances that I met Krzysztof Grandys. We didn’t really return to my article - instead, we started talking about what we could do next and how Centrum Druku 3D could support him.
We began discussing sponsoring him with 3D printers. At that point, however, a formal and accounting problem arose. Companies were willing to donate equipment, but Krzysztof was still acting as a private individual.
This led to the idea of establishing a foundation. Ultimately, in August 2017, Krzysztof Grandys, Anna Ślusarczyk, and Urszula Skowronek founded the e-Nable Poland Foundation.
Soon after, the foundation received support from, among others, Zortrax, 3DGence, and filament manufacturers such as Fiberlogy, Spectrum Filaments, Devil Design, Finnotech, as well as a number of other entities.
I, on behalf of Centrum Druku 3D, took on the promotion of the organization in the media. The culmination of this was Anna’s appearance in 2019 on Dzień Dobry TVN, at the time the largest morning TV show in Poland.
In 2022, the work of e-Nable Poland was even recognized by Dassault Systèmes, which supported the organization with a grant used to purchase additional software and equipment for scanning patients’ hands and processing STL files.
It is worth mentioning that this was one of the few cases in which the foundation received financial support. Throughout the entire period of its operation, neither Krzysztof nor Anna received any remuneration or any other financial benefits for running the foundation.
Unlike a whole host of organizations of this type, they treated the term non-profit very literally.
Krzysztof Grandys
Krzysztof is one of the most extraordinary people I have ever met. He is one of the very few doctors in Poland who completed medical studies after having first earned a degree in mechanical engineering at a technical university.
This one-of-a-kind combination means that he looks at patients’ problems not only from the perspective of medical procedures, but also through the lens of innovation. It was precisely his engineering background that sparked his interest in 3D printing and led him to the e-Nable project.
For years, he also fought an ungrateful yet persistent battle to introduce additive manufacturing technologies into Polish hospitals, which in this regard were extremely conservative and closed to innovation.
In this sense, Grandys is one of the pioneers in Poland - someone no one ever talks about and whom hardly anyone is even aware of.
And here we arrive at another of Krzysztof’s traits: an almost pathological modesty and a complete lack of desire for the spotlight.
Now, make no mistake - once you start discussing technological or medical topics, Krzysztof holds his ground firmly. You can engage in long debates with him, and it is not easy to defeat him in a factual, substantive exchange of arguments.
The point is that he never feels the need to announce his successes and achievements to the world. No - he is not a media creature.
Krzysztof is an anesthesiologist at a children’s hospital. That means he is responsible for putting small - sometimes truly tiny, just a few days old - patients to sleep. He takes part in surgeries that end successfully, as well as those that do not. From time to time, he has shared stories about them with us.
Yes, such work requires a very specific psychological makeup. Humility and modesty are useful qualities. When confronted daily with life and death, pride and egocentrism are tested far too harshly.
I think that thanks to this, Krzysztof looks at the world in a very realistic (but not cynical!) way. That rationality helped us navigate sensibly through the madness of the years 2020–2021.
When it comes to e-Nable Poland, Krzysztof simply helps children and adults. I had the opportunity several times to take part in meetings and conversations - with parents of children and with adults whom he and Anna helped together:
about a girl who could finally have her nails painted,
about a boy who received an Iron Man hand,
about a woman who could finally buy pretty gloves and wear a bracelet that didn’t slip off,
about another woman who could finally wear a ring.
Just trivial things. Completely normal for someone who was born with both hands.
A dream come true for someone who, because of a genetic defect, never had a hand at all.
Thanks to e-Nable projects, we discovered what a child (or an adult) without a hand feels. That they are incomplete, lesser. When a child received this - let’s be honest - quite simple prosthetic substitute, but styled like a superhero’s hand, they instantly became special.
Other – healthy - children were actually jealous of them.
It really turns out sometimes that it doesn’t take much to change someone’s life. To open the door to a completely new world.
The Real Heroes of the World
There was a time when this outraged me. I considered it deeply unfair and felt the need to fight against it. But after turning forty, I understood that this fight makes no sense - because it cannot be won.
The world celebrates figures who are empty, worthless, and bring no benefit to humanity. The world follows their lives, admires them, and pays them huge amounts of money for it.
At the same time, in parallel, right next to them, there are other people who are their complete opposite. They help, they heal, they save lives. They receive nothing in return beyond the bare minimum. They are not famous, they are not celebrated, and they are not showered with easy money.
No, they do not live in an alternative reality - it is still the same, shared reality.
There is nothing that can be done about it. Except for one thing: whenever the opportunity arises, these people should be supported. Not necessarily financially - in every possible way. Sometimes it is enough to write a message saying that what they do is great, that it is appreciated.
In a world glittering with false idols, it is good to appreciate and celebrate real heroes - people who do extraordinary things under the cloak of a gray, muddy everyday life.
It is good to know that in a country like Poland there are people like Krzysztof and Anna, who for ten years have been helping others simply for the satisfaction of it.
They do it because someone has to step up and do it.
All photos courtesy of e-Nable Polska & my personal archive. All right reserved.
The arguments in your original article are correct. Prostheses, like 3D printed dental parts, are custom but still must meet the requirements for the EU MDR (MDD at the time) and ISO 13485. What counterarguments were used to avoid doing so? Giving away the parts for free, therefore not "placing on the market"?