Celebrating my Independence Day at Ottobock HQ
Often, the best adventures come from spontaneous conversations!
During our last wonderful Movao live session, as we were all saying our goodbyes, I happened to mention to Saskia Willich of Movao/Ottobock that I’d be heading to Berlin the following week. Without missing a beat, she kindly invited me to visit the Ottobock Headquarters on the Prenzlauer Allee.
For an amputee such as myself, although I am very active, I am no Paralympic athlete or a famous person. Normally, you don’t get invitations like that. So this was an amazing chance that doesn’t come by very often!
This invitation actually solved a lingering item on my to-do list. I had a few weeks ago promised Rebecca Legon of Movao that I’d shoot some social media content, but just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Saskia and Rebecca cleverly suggested that we could just shoot the socials right there in Berlin. It was a wonderful idea!
Historic charm in the heart of Berlin
After finalising the details via email, Margot, my girlfriend, and I headed over to Ottobock HQ last Tuesday. The headquarters is absolutely stunning. It’s based in a lovely, historic building - a previous beer factory that had been beautifully transformed into modern offices.
The location itself is steeped in history and culture. It sits in Prenzlauer Berg, near Alexanderplatz, in a district now known as Mitte (which was part of East Berlin before the Wall came down). Anyone who has ever been to Berlin knows that this is a phenomenal part of the city. If you haven't visited Berlin yet, take my advice: make sure this neighbourhood is on your itinerary!
Independence day
For an amputee, Ottobock is almost synonymous with walking. There are a few prosthetic device brands on the market, and Ottobock is one of the best known. My current knee is an Ottobock knee - the mechanical 3R80 - on which I learned to walk again just a year ago.
As fate would have it, the day of our visit marked exactly one year since I received my first prosthesis, the very same one I am still wearing today. I call it my Independence Day because, from that day forward, I became less and less dependent on the people around me to get anywhere, both inside and outside the house. It took a little while to finally get there, of course, but that day, the journey started. (I call the day my leg was amputated my Liberation Day, because that was the day I literally got liberated from my increasingly unwilling and extremely painful leg and the growing limitations it gave me).
What a beautiful coincidence to be celebrating the first anniversary of my Independence Day right there at Ottobock HQ!
Lights, camera, action!
Saskia was an incredible host. She gave Margot and me a tour of the offices, and we took some time to relax and drink coffee out on the terrace.
Then, it was time to get to work! We filmed the social media content I owed Rebecca and Saskia, with one of Saskia’s colleagues performing the duties as the cameraman. The great old building - combined with the absolutely perfect weather we had that day - made for an ideal filming location. I haven’t actually seen the final footage yet, so fingers crossed it turns out as great as it felt doing it! It was a wonderful experience to tell about myself as an amputee and the community that is Movao right there at Ottobock HQ.
A delicious wrap-up
To cap off this fun and productive morning, Saskia invited us and her colleague out for lunch. We went to a fantastic little Vietnamese restaurant in Prenzlauer Berg. It was the perfect, relaxed end to a beautiful visit, and Margot and I truly enjoyed every minute of it. Words cannot describe how it felt for me to be doing this, especially in the great city that is Berlin.
