This has been the crux: if you add any type of padding and cushioning, there is a loss of sense and feel with the ground, which takes away control. If you want greater power, one must remove padding from under the foot. Case in point – track shoes. For them, optimum control is required which means almost no padding exists under the foot.

We ask why one has to choose. Why can’t an athlete have both optimal cushioning for comfort while simultaneously having advanced performance?

With this in mind we have developed the pTiga platform, designed for all types of footwear.

The footwear industry spends more on marketing its products, than in does on innovating them. We see this gap between what is available and what is needed as an opportunity.

There will, of course, always be the broad-use footwear. However, a golfer will want a customized shoe to fit their specific needs, and not just golf needs but their personal biomechanical and physiological needs. Obviously, each person is different when compared to another - their bones within their feet never the same. Future footwear has to adapt and account for such differences.

For example, a runner will want footwear that fits personally, is designed with end-user function set to the type of running they do (trail, track or road), and designed for that environment.

Although this insight is not totally new, it has failed to take root mostly due to technological failings.

This process of giving the customer a superior product that is suited to them will need to be efficient, and easy to implement. pTiga™ footwear is such a platform, one that has re-imagined what footwear is, and what it can do.



Plantiga's cradle and articulated perimeter stability enhances every element of footwear design, use and capability. The foot now sits within the shoe while the sole enforces the correct physiological motion of a foot with the stability of a mountain goat (on which it was designed, in part!).

Because of it's design, the pTiga™ footwear platform takes a different approach in manufacture, drastically decreasing the environmental impact of footwear production.

pTiga™, once instrumented, becomes an information tool. Instrumented pTiga™ is the basis for Plantiga's 1Grid™ and Holis™ solutions.

By only having scanners at junctures, the system has no way of knowing who people are once they are inside an area, or outside of it. This becomes problematic in places where the controlling authority needs to know who everybody is, at all times.

This is where Plantiga comes in. The essence of what we are doing is mobility. We have developed wearable intelligent shoes, which by their very nature create a mobile biometric system. The 1Grid system is decentralized in that the scanner is on everybody. 1Grid creates new levels of identity management, accounting, tracking and auditing. This difference excites, and motivates everybody on the Plantiga team.

The "FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are paying for studies of better screening methods, but no one seems to be doing fundamental research on whether the physical or behavioural characteristics such technologies seek to measure are truly reliable". Because the modern world is increasingly moving toward biometric as a foundation of citizen identity and security, there needs to be better solutions.

Plantiga is, and continues, to develop a type of biometric technology that sits outside of the current convention. With our innoavtive approach, 1Grid security, pushes the boundary of current systems.

"Everyone would be better served if a good deal more was known about what it is, biologically, that makes each and everyone of us a unique human being". Plantiga is in line with this new understanding that more work and different technologies need to be developed.

Safran is a leading international high-technology group with core businesses in Aerospace, Defense and Security. Upon close of the transaction, Safran plans to integrate L-1's operations into its subsidiary, Morpho.

Safran has been on a spending spree over the last few years, looking to grow into the largest biometric developer and supplier, of both hardware and software, on earth.

Unless you put something on their persons, which they are likely to loose, it is difficult to monitor what they are doing throughout their shift. With Plantiga biometric footwear, any governing authority can monitor and attach a ID stamp to all activity.

This creates a superior auditing process, which in turn makes things more secure - that's the ultimate goal.

What is never really talked about, and what is probably the most vulnerable area in the whole of aviation, is how these organizations protect and secure airport personnel and accompanying airport facilities. From baggage handlers and mechanics to runway train drivers and couriers - how might we identify, track and audit the personnel? This is what should be talked about, what should be reevaluated and decisively dealt with, both for their own protection and the security of the populace at large. 

Currently, there is no technology flexible enough to identify, track and log the activities of the various groups that work at an airport (which occurs a lot more often than it does for anyone flying out of it). There is no robust way of auditing their activity, accounting for their different access control levels and so much more.

We, at Plantiga, have the answer to many of these complex security issues. With our system the personnel will be wearing footwear that biometrically identifies them. This not only allows for access control identification at various points in the airport, but allows for the individuals activity to be attached to whatever they do (cargo they've loaded or unloaded, buildings accessed, etc). 

What drives us is the vision of implementing a whole new level in security technology, especially within environments like airports or shipping ports. It hasn't happened yet, and it's not something we readily want to talk about, but there needs to be better ways to protect the personnel in an airport – along with everyone else who just might be passing through. The potential damage of somebody infiltrating an airport is just as bad as somebody getting past a single point of security and boarding a plan.

We are not sure the specifics, but right now it looks like we will be able to apply for IRAP funding assistance in the near future, as well as develop the technology under a particular R&D North American agreement. 

The NRC is also going to help us out with marketing strategies and market research, as well as our financing efforts. All in all, it's nice to have the governments assistance.