Merel Brehm, Niels Waterval, Frans Nollet, and Jaap Harlaar have been awarded a grant of €327,429 IMDI grant in the category ‘Technology for humanized care: demonstration projects’. The project focuses on developing a wearable, stiffness-adjustable ankle-foot orthosis. The goal is to significantly shorten the procedure for selecting the optimal orthotic stiffness through human-in-the-loop optimization. The project is a follow-up to the PROOF-AFO study, which showed that optimization of ankle-foot orthotic stiffness can significantly improve walking ability in people with muscular diseases. The new project will help to implement these results in practice and improve orthotic care. A PhD candidate will be appointed at  Amsterdam UMC, location AMC for 2 years, with extension if funding is available. ZonMw/NWO-TTW and the Life Sciences Health (LSH) Foundation are funding 50% of the project costs, the other 50% is contributed by the consortium partners AMC, TU Delft, OIM orthopedics and Reade Rehabilitation.