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Bea Alink

Bea Alink

Founder and CEO of The Alinker, inventor of a non-motorized walking bike for people with mobility challenges, and author of "Inventing BE"

Jun 10, 2026

13:32
And Vie, where is the Alinker, where is it made?
13:36
We produce in Taiwan because Taiwan is the best place for bicycle production if you sort of balance out the quality versus the cost.
13:47
It's not the cheapest place to build bikes, but I visited factories when I started the Alinker and so it was four and a half years of prototyping, uh, from a little, so skipping back to that question, sorry Laurel, little, uh, cardboard prototypes or models into a wooden prototype and then I went to a local guy here who made first seven conceptual prototypes in aluminum that were, that I could actually test with people.
14:17
And then I went to a guy in the Netherlands who develops rehabilitation bikes, uh, equipment, and then he made seven pre-production prototypes, and then he introduced me to his manufacturer in Taiwan, who is still also a partner in the business actually, because he loves what we're doing.
14:39
But in that process of trying to find a manufacturer, I went to China, to Guangzhou, to some bike factories and stuff, and the, the conditions that I saw that people were working in, for example, wearing slippers on a concrete floor that was eaten out by the acid of the acid baths before you, you know, where you put the frames through an acid bath before you put them in powder coating, and people walking around on slippers there.
15:06
The concrete gets eaten away.
15:08
I do not want to imagine what happens to their feet or their lifespan.

7 MINS LATER

21:59
When did you, uh, implement the certified B Corporation? What year was that?

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