The Business of Life with Dr King
Dr Ariel Rosita King brings on a variety of International guests from various countries, cultures, organisations, and businesses to talk about turning
problem into possibilities! Let's turn our challenges in opportunities together!
The Business of Life with Dr King
From Sculptor to Innovator: How One Man's Solution for His Brother Changed Prosthetics Forever with John Amanam Sunday (Nigeria)
When Sir John Amanam Sunday's brother lost his fingers in a 2019 accident, he discovered a glaring void in prosthetic options for people with darker skin tones. This moment of crisis sparked an extraordinary journey of innovation that would transform this Nigerian sculptor into Africa's first hyper-realistic prosthetic artist.
Faced with prosthetics that failed to match Black skin tones, Amanam embarked on research that proved more challenging than anticipated. "There were no research books, no YouTube videos, no journals, no schools where prostheses for Black people could actually be learned," he explains. Undeterred, he became his own teacher, researcher, and student, eventually developing techniques to create prosthetics with authentic melanated skin tones.
What began as a personal mission unexpectedly captured global attention when his work went viral online. Suddenly, Amanam found himself receiving calls from around the world – people from Canada, Ghana, and dozens of other countries seeking prosthetics that would actually match their skin. This overwhelming demand pushed him to formalize his operation into Immortal Cosmetic Arts, now serving clients from more than 60 countries.
The evolution of Amanam's work demonstrates remarkable innovation. Beginning with aesthetically realistic prosthetics, he progressed to manually adjustable versions that could create different hand gestures. Most recently, he and his brother (who joined the company) have developed brain-controlled bionic arms covered with realistic melanated skin – what Amanam proudly calls "Africa's first humanoid bionic arm."
Looking forward, Amanam envisions prosthetics transcending medical necessity to become fashion statements. "People would advance to a point where they could decide 'I want three arms, I want two heads'... It will no longer be a pity thing. It's going to be a fashionable thing." This visionary approach, coupled with his plan to employ a majority of staff from the disability community, positions Immortal Cosmetic Arts at the forefront of truly inclusive prosthetic innovation.
Visit www.immortalcosmeticarts.com to discover how this groundbreaking work is restoring confidence and transforming lives worldwide.
Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King
Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....
The Business of Life
Dr Ariella (Ariel) Rosita King
Original Song, "Teach Me to Live one Day At A Time"
written, guitar and vocals by Dr. Ariel Rosita King
Dr King Solutions (USA Office)
1629 K St, NW #300,
Washington, DC 20006, USA,
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Business of Life. Today we have a very special guest, Sir John Anaman Sundae. Welcome, Sir.
John Amanam Sunday:You're welcome, Dr.
Dr Ariel R. King:Kim, I'm so happy that you're here with me today. You can see I'm just smiling all over the place. It's just such a pleasure to have you. Thank you. Could you please introduce yourself to our audience and who you are, where you come from and what you do?
John Amanam Sunday:All right, my name is John Amanam Sondi. I'm a sculptor and a hyper-realistic prosthetic artist. I'm Africa's first hyper-realistic prosthetic artist. I'm a researcher and a curious individual. I like solving problems. I'm from Nigeria.
Dr Ariel R. King:I think that's it. Thank you, you sound quite like an engineer. Can you please explain to our audience what you do, because many people don't know this terminology, and to explain not just what you do, but why did you start to do it All?
John Amanam Sunday:right. Many years ago, in 2019, my younger brother lost his fingers to an accident, and it was a moment of shock for us as a family. As an individual, I thought of ways to meet his need to solve that problem for him, and one of the thoughts that came across my mind was to attempt to create the prosthesis for him. Then, in the process of trying to purchase, we realized that prostheses that were available here in Africa were actually imported. The prostheses we had were not just imported, but they weren't a reflection of the black skin, the melanin. It wasn't really created to match our own skin tone. Then I decided to go into research and to see if I could actually solve this problem, if I could attempt to create prostheses that are actually dark skin tone for him. You can imagine having to travel to India or one of those countries outside Africa to get prostheses for your finger, your palm, your glove, your leg or any body parts you coincidentally may find yourself missing on your body.
Dr Ariel R. King:So this was a challenge.
John Amanam Sunday:This was the situation at the time.
John Amanam Sunday:And then I decided to go into the research the situation at the time, and then I decided to go into the research and after a series of failures and attempts, I finally could find a solution. At that point I won't call it I hadn't mastered the craft, I just found a way of doing it and I shouted hurray, I found it. So that was the genesis of the journey of creating hyper-realistic processes. And even at that I did not really understand the impact of my discovery. I realized that it was actually a challenge that many Africans, many blacks, all over the world were interested in, until I started receiving calls. Someday someone made a post about myself and it went viral. I didn't really want it to be business. I didn't think of business, of processes. I didn't think of it until someone posted about my work and it went viral. I started receiving calls from different countries and I was like, wow, this is overwhelming, we need to do something about this. So that's the genesis of where I started from.
Dr Ariel R. King:That's really amazing. So you started to help your brother when he lost his finger and you wanted him to be able to have a finger and also for function and also for sight and then realized that his finger that you could get didn't match his skin tone. Instead, it matched the skin tone of a European or someone like that, and you, as his brother, you sound very much like an engineer, a person who wants to solve problems, who's very curious. So then you figured out how this can be done for your brother. That's just really truly amazing. That's amazing.
John Amanam Sunday:So the beauty of it is that in the course of my research and my invention innovation, whatever you may call it I realized that people started having hope in myself People. I never I hadn't thought of designing ears, nose, fingers All I wanted was a pound for him. But when the posts went viral and people started seeing what I did, they started imagining the things I could actually do. And then I started seeing people calling me. Oh, I'm calling you from Canada, I'm calling you from Ghana. I need an ear. And I was like how do I make an ear? So I now realized that so many people had hopes and expectations from me. I was like the flashpoint. Everyone was looking for that light. Finally we found one. Oh, all of our problems are solved.
Dr Ariel R. King:Oh, I needed an ear.
John Amanam Sunday:I needed a tool, I needed fingers, I needed you know.
John Amanam Sunday:So I started walking tirelessly, became so overwhelmed by the needs, the projections of all these individuals telling me you can, you can, you can, and I had to also tell myself at the end I can. So I expanded the research beyond just creating fingers. I started researching on ears creating fingers. I started researching on EAs, and these are articles I had not studied about in the past. So there were no research books, no YouTube videos, no journals, no schools where processes for Black people could actually be learned. So I became my teacher, my student and my researcher. So it was quite a long, stressful journey, very, very tedious one.
John Amanam Sunday:I was determined within myself that I will get it. The earliest days came. I'm a sculptor and creating the forms wasn't a sculptor. And creating the forms wasn't a problem, but achieving the colours was a problem. So in my early days of research I thought to myself okay, let me get painters, people who specialise in painting, they will be able to achieve those colours and then I invited a few of my friends be able to achieve those colors.
John Amanam Sunday:Then I invited a few of my friends who I thought understand these colors, and the result wasn't what they thought it would be. I do not blame them, but it was a different scheme of colors, completely, completely, from what they had ever known. So, after a series of failures, I realized I was the only one who would bear the patience. I would be the only one to solve this thing. I would be the only one to strive, since it was my project. I needed to carry the cross myself. So I developed the passion, the drive. I decided this is a do or do you have to do it? You have to achieve this, you have to try, you have to conquer this fear. That's when, from one mistake to the other, something led to something and something, and before you know it.
John Amanam Sunday:I was able to solve it and I feel very happy about that. I'm not chickened out of that challenge.
Dr Ariel R. King:You took the challenge but, as you said, you're an intellectual. Anyway, you're a very curious person. I think that what's really amazing to me is that you had decided no, this is now on me, I can do this. Right, it's never been done before. People need it, they want it. I'm a sculptor, so you're an artist, but now people are asking you to help change their lives by helping them to have what would look like whatever is normal. So people are looking at it, so they feel good about themselves, so they can change their lives.
Dr Ariel R. King:I love the fact that you said that what you did is. You said no, I can do this, I will do this. And then I must do this because, even though artists I've asked artists to do it it's not their project, it's not their passion and it's my passion. So you have basically not just made history, but you are a historical figure. You're the first historical figure I've been able to talk to my entire life. You're making history by making it possible for people. May I ask how did you scale up from just one person making these prostheses and I'm sure that there's a huge demand from all over the world how have you been able to scale up from being the only person to meeting some of these needs and demands that you now have from all over the world.
John Amanam Sunday:Yes, it was quite challenging as an artist I grew into the profession to be casual. It's not really like artists are casual but we are not really wired to be very formal or corporate. But my early days, the early challenges of the early stage of my research and discovery, had informed me that I needed to be more corporate and more formal in my dealings. I needed to not just see it as an individual. Oh, john, no, no, no. I needed to go beyond that. I observed that the numbers were increasing as the day went by and it was obvious we needed to expand, we needed to employ people, we needed to expand, we needed to just expand. So I had to start going the formal way having an office, registering it as a company, you know, having people to attend to calls while I walk, and gradually we started expanding and structuring the business itself.
John Amanam Sunday:So at some point, even with all of that, it still became overwhelming because as the years went by, we were having more clients, more demands, and I was scared of, you know, someone or people, a group of people, coming to maybe steal my idea, you know, and go away with it. So I tried to keep my circle small. So I remember two years or so. I remember about four years ago we had a very overwhelming experience. There was so much coming in from different countries around the world, so much that we had to halt. We had to say let's stop receiving orders because of that stigma. The Nigerians take my love.
Dr Ariel R. King:They say ah.
John Amanam Sunday:Nigerians. They're scamming. So I have always tried to protect the image of myself, my image. I have always tried to protect the image of myself, my image and the image of my company by being careful and faithful to our promises. So when it got hot and tougher in terms of the demands and people flogging into our space, we had to tell them look, we are already borrowing. We have to wait for a while until we're sure we've closed up our shelf. So those were one of our experiences and after that experience I think it took us about two months we started re-strategizing, started increasing our delivery time putting other things in place that would actually give us room to accommodate all of these countries.
John Amanam Sunday:People were calling from different countries and calling and then it was quite overwhelming, not just because it's a difficult task, but task. But the challenges are quite unique to individuals. What we create are customized processes. They are not on-the-shelf options. They are actually customized for each individual, which means which implies that you have to study each individual to achieve close realism to his condition. It means you have to observe and study his tones, his textures, size and a lot of other considerations.
John Amanam Sunday:So this made it tedious for us, and has always been a procedure, you know, until we get to that stage where we decide, okay, we want to make it on the shelf. So that is one of those things. So currently we've expanded, we've also tried, we've created modules to check all of that, but I wouldn't say we've overcome that in totality. We've been able to at least step up to the challenge, at least by 40% of our previous condition. So I would say we are still growing, we are still improving. That's impressive.
Dr Ariel R. King:We do forward. That's really impressive.
John Amanam Sunday:We're bringing in technology that would scale up a kind of production.
Dr Ariel R. King:I really love that. May I ask so now, are you helping to train artisans like yourself in order to meet some of these demands? Are there people that you are helping to understand color, helping to understand how to look at someone who comes to you to make whatever it is that they need that matches them, their size, their skin tone and so on and so forth? And how is that going if you are passing this along to other people?
John Amanam Sunday:Yeah, I am doing that, although on a small scale. We have representatives in some countries and some areas who actually help us to guide. We've taught them, we've trained them on how to receive these clients, address their needs and attend to their colors, their tones, their textures and their sizes. So we've trained some people in different countries and also within our country, because a lot of people want that one-on-one interaction. It's not just about creating prostheses. It's about having to talk to someone, having to explain to someone how you feel, how your prostheses, you feel they should be, what are the challenges you are facing? How could you inspire the designer on what works best for you? So it's all of these things that are put together that makes us who we are.
John Amanam Sunday:We are working on training a lot of people and also that will be in the future, because this is an industry Light, sound. This is an industry, so we should be able to.
Dr Ariel R. King:I can hear you say this is an industry.
John Amanam Sunday:Yeah, this is an industry we should be able to scale up, not just the designs we should should be able to scale up not just the designs. We should also be able to scale up the workforce Right, the workforce for the production.
Dr Ariel R. King:May I ask are you actually partnering with any kind of medical school or any type of health systems, since you're one of the few people in the entire world making these individualized prostheses for people from all over the world?
John Amanam Sunday:Yeah, we have a lot of proposals and we've not really had any concrete partnership for now. But we have proposals from organizations for now. But we have proposals from organizations, the medical facilities from different parts of the world. But one of the challenges they face, or they have faced let me use the word they is that most of them always want me to leave my country, and it's something I'm not willing to do very soon, yeah.
Dr Ariel R. King:But what's interesting is I mean you know many countries to do very soon, yeah, but what's interesting is I mean you know many countries have innovations and innovators like yourself. You know, basically, you are an innovator. So what's really interesting to me is that, instead of leaving your country, you are an innovator from Nigeria, proudly from Africa, who is literally taking everything that you've done in research and literally expanding it all over the world for people that need it. So I would say that I think that you're the one that has the ace in the pocket. Perhaps you can get that. You don't need to go to anyone. The truth is, you know the mountain needs to come to Muhammad.
John Amanam Sunday:Yeah, I'm not really racist in my approach. I just feel the roots of this innovation and invention was.
Dr Ariel R. King:Of course it's a medical need, it's a medical, it's a medical, psychological, social. You know, I I remember growing up and I knew a woman who had no hand and, um, it was just a knob and she used to put on this plastic hand. But the plastic hand used to just be like this, it didn't move, it didn't do anything, and she would use it like somebody would use, for example, a hook. I remember sometimes her frustration with even trying to hold things, trying to, you know, you know, just try to. And what I also remember, even though I was a child, is I remember that it didn't go with her at all, that it was really looked like something that was an addition to her part of her. So the fact that you're actually, um, making parts and pieces of people's body to allow them to feel and to be, uh, to feel, whole makes all the difference. May I ask, can you tell us what kind of what? What are the different type of prostheses you've made? I'm just very curious about that okay.
John Amanam Sunday:We've made over the years different kinds of. We've evolved that's the word I would love to use. We've evolved from just creating processes that are just aesthetically interesting to adding functionality to it. The first phase of our evolution came with manually adjustable. After creating hyper-realistic prostheses which is what we do we thought of adding functionality to it, because this is actually solving of problems. We were able to solve the aesthetic aspect of the hyper-realistic prostheses. We were looking at the functionalityanalysic prosthesis. We were looking at functionality. We added manually adjustable fingers. We made our fingers to have a little of function, but manually you could actually adjust your fingers to create gestures. Gestures like pointing, grabbing, folding and all of that shaking. Those were gestures. We made our functional, manually functional processes achieve all those functions.
John Amanam Sunday:But currently the amazing part of the story is my younger brother, who was the inspiration behind my venture into the creation of hyper-realistic processes, actually became part of the company. I brought him in to be part of the company and I said look, this all started with you and we have to finish this together. So, look, you're going to go into creating boundaries. The future of the company is we have to start creating, we have to start thinking and working on creating boundaries which would add more of an electric functionality to the hand, and he obliged to that and was very swift about it. He began projects, started going on trainings and all of that started researching, since he was actually an engineering or science-oriented person.
John Amanam Sunday:He decided to go into that research and what we did was just fund him, create teams around him to ensure he had all he needed to do. So currently we've left the stage of creating hyper-realistic, manually adjustable palms to creating palmettes which are controlled by brain signals. They are actually controlled by brain signals. You just need to think of grabbing and then the hand grabs. Think of pointing.
Dr Ariel R. King:I am stunned. That is fabulous. You know, I really love the fact that you're so humble that you started out with an accident with your brother. You tried to figure out how to make him more comfortable to get fingers. You then take that and realize there's a greater need. So then you start that, you learn about that, you learn about color and so on and so forth. Then you go to answering the I would say the demand from people. Then you restructure again and now now you are actually doing. What do you call it? Biomedics or how bionics.
Dr Ariel R. King:That's just amazing. I am so looking forward to see what's coming next from you and your company and your family, and what I love is that you've done this in a very, very short period of time. How many years has it been since your brother lost his finger? And now, how many years has it been?
John Amanam Sunday:I think he lost his finger in 2019. It should be five years now.
Dr Ariel R. King:So you did all of this in less than six years.
John Amanam Sunday:Yeah.
Dr Ariel R. King:Yes, sir, you're absolutely amazing, so I'm sorry to interrupt you. I was just enamored about that. This is really great. Please continue to tell us more about the new innovations that you have. Okay, so the Bionics function, the use of Bionics continue to tell us more about the new innovations that you have.
John Amanam Sunday:Okay, so the bionics function with the use of chips and signals, works with the brain, and then what we are projecting is we want to change the narrative from just.
John Amanam Sunday:There are bionics in other parts of the world, different kinds of bionics, but this is going to be Africa's first humanoid bionic arm, which is not just going to be robotic, like hard and mechanical outside, we're going to cover it with the flesh. We're going to cover it with the black skin flesh, the black skin prosthesis. So you actually see functional hands that are actually bionics, hands that could grab without you noticing that they are electronically powered. So that's the future, that's where we're heading to and in weeks, in a matter of weeks, we'll launch it. We are done with the robotics side, the bionics side.
John Amanam Sunday:So since I specialize in creating hyper-realistic forms. It is now this synergy my brother creates the bionics, I create the realistic flesh for us, then we merge it and then it becomes Africa's first humanoid bionic arm.
Dr Ariel R. King:Thank you. That's amazing, and you know I'm thinking about what you're doing. I know that there are people all over the world doing this, but usually they are supported by very big companies, very big budgets, lots of machines, lots of possibilities. And what I love is that you have done this within your family and, of course, you are not just an artist but also pretty much an engineer. You're a creator. But what's amazing to me is that you don't have the same and maybe that's the best thing, Maybe that's what made it fantastic that you don't have all these people around you telling you what to do and how to do it and all these funds that basically either stop you or put you in another direction. So when you tell me about that, I'm thinking this is not just Africa. I think that if we look worldwide, you and your brother and the company that you've built is one of the few companies in the world that's based in Africa that does this. So can you talk more about that?
John Amanam Sunday:Our company, which is Immortal Cosmetic Arts, is. I don't mean to brag, but we are the best when it comes to black, hyper-realistic flesh products. Over the years I've watched other companies, you know other companies.
John Amanam Sunday:I've tried to see to lay statistics to see their level of realism and also their consistency. You know it's missing. It's missing. One of the things that proved us right is that we actually receive orders from different countries, different countries all over the world, countries where, even advanced countries where we expect that they should have higher forms of processes. So it's not really about the bragging side of it. It's more of how effective, how positive we've been, we've influenced our society, so we've been able to have at least orders from more than 60 countries. In our years of function We've had a lot of publications Personally, I have a patent on that and we have trademarks.
John Amanam Sunday:We have all of those things. But I'm always very excited that we've been able to touch lives positively. It is the most interesting part of what I do. It is one of the heights of my excitement. We've been able to touch lives, we've been able to change the narrative, even with the little we have. We're not that super, like you rightly said. We don't have the big funds, we don't have the big names, we don't have the big partners, but we are consistent, we have a mission and that's what matters more to us touching lives and restoring comfort, hope and confidence. The others will come along the way.
Dr Ariel R. King:Absolutely outstanding. Thank you, can you tell us I don't know if you're allowed to tell us, but tell us a little bit about what's going to happen for the future, for your company and for yourself, your brother and for your family, and what you're doing worldwide? The future of prostheses what I see Future for you, right for you and your company.
John Amanam Sunday:Yeah, for me myself, for my company, the future of our business is to see prostheses evolve from just solving needs to fashion. I'm seeing the future of processes for fashion. People would advance to a point where processes would advance technologically, aesthetically, to a point where people could decide I want three arms, I want three arms, I want three legs, I want two heads. It's going to be fashion. It's not really going to. It will no longer be. It will be a style. People will no longer be afraid of losing a body part because they know they could actually restore. All that you lost will be restored without any form of threats. So it's going to be a future of fashion. People will have prostheses that are colored. People will no longer look at the skin tones, the realism, the clothes match. People will go beyond that to having hyper-realistic prostheses of colors, colors fashion, like tattoos, right, like some people tattoo.
Dr Ariel R. King:or you know, when somebody gets a cast on their leg, they break their leg. They always want people to design it. So that really is the future. That's amazing. You really. You really have your eye on what's going to be happening in the future.
John Amanam Sunday:That's fact I see a future of designs, different designs. People could come up and say, oh, can you make six legs? I want six feet. I mean six foot or six toes. Sorry, make seven fingers so you will be able to differentiate between people who are disabled and normal people, because it's going to transcend beyond disability.
John Amanam Sunday:Pity it's no longer going to be a pity thing. It's going to be a fashionable thing. Who is amputated or who has a disability, you see that person as a classy person, someone who can do a lot of things, who can modify himself to suit his or her needs. That's the future for myself and my company. That's what we are seeing, that's what we are working for, that's what we are doing.
Dr Ariel R. King:The time 30 minutes has gone by so fast. Could you please tell our audience how to get in touch with you or how they can learn more about what you're doing?
John Amanam Sunday:We have hello audience. We have a website which is wwwimmortalcosmeticartscom. We also have a verified Facebook page. I myself have a verified page. Yes, Immortal. You see, Immortal, that of my company on Facebook is Immortal.
John Amanam Sunday:Cosmetic Arts. It's verified as well. I also have an Instagram handle for myself, so you get there and you see a lot of works. You see the people's lives, the thoughts, the designs we've made, the stories we've told. All of that are all embedded in those pages. And that's how to reach out you just get there and there are people to attend to you when you get to those handles. And that's how to recharge you just get there and there are people to attend to when you get to those handles. Thank you so much.
Dr Ariel R. King:And then can I also add that you were so kind to work with people within our foundation Sir Moses Akwere and Sir Michael also and thank you so much for that. So because of you, the Ariel Foundation International was able to have a publication with all the wonderful work that you're doing. So we thank you for that and we'll also put all of the information that you said in the link with this podcast and including. We'll put the link also to your publication. I want to thank you, sir. I'm so excited. I would ask you, if you have the time again, to perhaps to have another time of 30 minutes to talk more about the future, of what we call product mix.
John Amanam Sunday:I would like to add that I have a future of employing 60% of people who are disabled to this company, because I believe they are the only ones who understand how it feels to lose an arm finger and they are the best people to research. They are the best people to make positive inputs, not for profit, but to solve their needs, to attend to the challenges of the family of amputees all over the world. So they are the best and they are in the best place to go into research and solve these needs. So we are looking at 60% of our staff being amputees people of different forms of disabilities in the future. That's a part of the future for us.
Dr Ariel R. King:Thank you so much. This is so, really so, inspiring. I want to thank our audience for joining us today and remember if I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, when am I? If not now, then when? That was by the philosopher Hillel, and I added if not me, then who? Thank you so much for joining us.
John Amanam Sunday:Thank you, Dr. Kim it.