Although safety footwear has an important role to play in ensuring the safety, comfort and health of workers in work environments that require the use of personal protective equipment (PPE), until now there has been no such thing as safety footwear designed specifically for women.

In collaboration with the Instituto de Biomecánica (IBV), the company DIADORA has developed Athena, a new safety shoe for women. The design of Athena has involved a study of the needs of working women, provided by working women themselves, a morphological study of their feet, and an analysis of their functional requirements.

The result is a shoe that provides an exceptional fit thanks to components designed to adapt perfectly to the user's tread, providing optimum functionality at every step.

Since it was set up in 1976, the Instituto de Biomecánica (IBV) has been distinguished for focusing on the transfer of knowledge and technology. To this end, in 2020, the IBV launched its latest development, MOVE4D, which is innovative and unprecedented 3D scanning technology used to study the shapes of the human body in motion, with a series of specific features that are a breakthrough in the practical use of the digital human modeling in diverse contexts such as digital anthropometry, biomechanics, human factors, health and the production of multimedia content.

As a benchmark of the success of the IBV knowledge transfer and promotion model, this article covers the launch and the setting up of a laboratory, which is based on the technology developed by the Valencian technology center. The Technische Universität Dresden and more specifically the Institute of Textile Machinery and High Performance Material Technology (ITM), is a prime example of the international scientific and technological significance of the work carried out by the IBV in the last few years.