TED Talk #7: Aimee Mullins

Mullins's talk is one that I won't soon forget. She starts it off by talking about legs. And behind her, there are pairs of prosthetic legs just there on the stage. She tells the audience a story about how she brought in the same legs to a group of elementary school kids and let them all poke and prod at them without their teachers there. Then she asked them what kind of legs would be best to have if she wanted to jump over a house. The kids responded with kangaroo and frog. Then, one kid said "Wouldn't you rather fly than jump?" She said that those kids changed the way she looked at life. She thought that kids no longer had to be disabled, but maybe even super-abled.

Mullins tells the audience how she was at a TED Talk 11 years ago and the legs she presented then were amazing at the time, but she wanted them to be even more. Her request for creators to come and help her create a new generation of prosthetic legs was fulfilled and now her legs are even better.

Aimee, being disabled herself, then tells how people always tell her how pretty she is and that she doesn't look at all disabled. Mullins takes that statement and challenges, "What is beauty? And for that matter, what makes someone disabled?" I personally think that these are two very important points. Beauty can mean many different things to many different people and beautiful to one person might not be to another. She also talks about what makes someone disabled. I think that you're only disabled if you let that take over your entire life and you stop trying.

Her TED Talk then flows into her ideas about how prosthetic legs don't only have to be functional, they can also be a work of art. Mullins shows pictures of a few pairs of legs that stand out among everything. For example:

Some of these may be weird looking but Mullins says that people can now combine the new technology of prosthetic legs with age old poetry to make truly unique legs for the disabled.

Mullins says that she is now very excited that people with disabilities can now design their own bodies by combining new technology with age old poetry to make their legs truly their own.

During her TED Talk, Mullins used hand motions and walked around the stage for the whole time. By the way she walked you would have no idea that her legs are prosthetic.

Aimee Mullins's TED Talk was amazing and empowering. Her ideas about prosthetic legs will change the way people look at disabled people around the world forever, for the better.