30th October 2025
Tilly Talks Tech launched on October 23, exploring how technology is reshaping what it means to be human through a series of interviews with host Tilly Lockey. Tilly lost both hands to meningitis as a baby, and is now a motivational speaker, content creator, and innovator at Open Bionics.
“I’ve been around tech since I was very young through prosthetics,” Tilly said. “I kept ending up at conferences seeing robots, brainwave art, live implants – things I didn’t even know existed. I love to learn and love to talk. I wanted to shine a light on this technology and how it will frame our future.”
It’s a podcast with a unique mission that’s deeply personal to Tilly. “What’s the point of cool tech if nobody has access to it?” Tilly explained. “All ad revenue from the podcast goes to support people fundraising for prostheses. My community helped me fund mine, and I know how important that is.”
In Episode 1, Tilly sat down with Hugh Herr, a bilateral lower limb amputee and Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT where he leads the Biomechatronics Group. He is widely known as “the man who rebuilt his own body.” Scroll to the bottom to watch the full interview.
“Picture this,” Tilly began. “You’re climbing an icy cliff face, hundreds of feet in the air… and in an instant, your life changes forever.” For Herr, that moment came at age seventeen, when he lost both legs below the knee to frostbite after a Mount Washington climbing accident.
Herr’s medical team fought for months to save his legs. “At a certain point, psychologically, emotionally, I gave up the fight and actually requested that my lower legs be amputated,” he recalled.
That decision became the start of something extraordinary. Using fabrication learned in trade school, Herr built custom climbing legs that were shorter, lighter, and more adaptable than flesh and bone. “To my surprise and everyone’s surprise,” he said, “I was able to return to rock and ice climbing. Within a year, I was actually climbing harder routes. Technology can heal, can rehabilitate, can even extend human capability beyond innate physiological capabilities.”
The experience set Herr on a path to transform prosthetics from simple tools into extensions of self. At MIT, his lab develops systems that connect the brain, nerves, and body with engineered limbs capable of sensation and intuitive movement. “Our goal is to do that nervous system integration, so that we’re rebuilding bodies,” he explained, “Not just building powerful devices or powerful tools.”
Tilly was able to relate to his work. “I definitely resonate with my prosthetics,” she admitted. Tilly wears a pair of Hero PROs, high-performance bionic arms built for precision, responsiveness, and comfort, with wireless multi-grip controls and water resistance. “I’ve been wearing them so long now, even that extra thought process that goes into triggering the muscle sensor has become second nature. I definitely adopt my prosthetics as part of me.”
Herr claims his team is close to developing bionic limbs that a person can feel and control with their brain. “When you think and move the device, and you feel it as a natural touch, the prosthesis becomes you. It doesn’t matter if it’s made of flesh and bone or titanium and carbon.”
Tilly Talks Tech drops every Thursday at 4 p.m. on the Open Bionics YouTube podcast channel and all major podcast platforms. Upcoming guests include Dutch fashion-tech designer Anouk Wipprecht, known for creating garments that blend art, engineering, and wearable technology, and the President of Signal, Meredith Whittaker, a technologist, researcher, and advocate for ethical, transparent technology.
Subscribe to Tilly Talks Tech so you don’t miss the next episode about how technology is reshaping what it means to be human.
Schedule a free consultation with our certified prosthetists today to see how a bionic hand could support you to reach your goals.
English 
USA 
German