The summer 2024 issue of the magazine Convergence, produced in The Robert Mehrabian College of Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, included an article about Cadense, a company developed by Tyler Susko, associate teaching professor, undergraduate vice chair, and capstone instructor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at UCSB. He had spent nearly a decade working — eventually with UCSB mechanical engineering associate professor Elliott Hawkes — to develop an adaptive shoe and build a startup company around it. The intention? To help the millions of people in the United States who experience foot drop, an inability when walking to avoid scuffing the ground when bringing one foot forward through the air to take the next step.

Susko and Elliott refer to their invention as a “variable friction shoe,” a reference to the fact that the sole contains both high-friction and low-friction components. When the foot is moving forward during the “swing phase” of walking, the low-friction component is elevated from the sole, so that if the foot contacts the ground, the shoe will slide forward rather than stopping, which can lead to trips and falls. Once the foot reconnects with the ground as the step is completed and the weight shifts to that foot, then the low-friction surface retracts, exposing the high-friction surface, which provides a stable, non-slip landing for the “stance phase” of the step, when the foot is on the ground. 

Recently, Cadense was selected as a finalist for a 2025 Innovation by Design Award presented by the American business magazine Fast Company. “The interesting thing,” says Susko, “is that the other finalists were Pottery Barn and Nike — huge guys — and then there was us, the little Cadense UCSB startup. Companies highlighted one tier down that received Honorable Mentions included Adobe, Mattel, and Mozilla. 

“It’s been amazing to see the adoption of our new technology,” said Susko. “We’ve served nearly thirty thousand customers to date, and have heard stories of people walking their daughter down the aisle at their wedding, which they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise; crying over the excitement of being able to join in on life; and remarking on the reduction in trips.  It brings us all so much joy each day getting to play a part in making life just a little bit better.  We’re dedicated to the expansion of the technology and exploring ways in which everyone who needs it can get it.” 

The Fast Company website describes the awards as “an annual celebration of all things design” and “a chance to honor the people and companies who are pushing the boundaries of design with products and projects that make our world a better and more interesting place.”

Each of this year’s notable projects, the website continues, “is a reminder that beauty and functionality are integral ingredients of true innovation,” providing “a window into the world’s most interesting problems….Regardless of size or industry, they all have something in common: They bring style, intelligence, and next-level problem-solving to the products and projects they create.”