SAO PAULO — Before standing in front of the entire world to make the first kick of the FIFA World Cup at last week's televised opening ceremony, 29-year-old Juliano Alves Pinto had not walked since Dec. 3, 2006. 

That evening, the car in which he was riding home from a party overturned just a few kilometers away from its destination. Pinto lost his older brother and the use of his legs in the accident.

In an interview with Folha de São Paulo, Pinto, who is now a wheelchair-racing athlete, talks about the mind-controlled robotic suit that allowed him to stand up and walk for the first time in more than seven years. 

FOLHA: How did you come to take part in the World Cup’s opening ceremony?
JULIANO ALVES PINTO: Although I live in a small town called Gália, 400 kilometers from São Paulo, I’ve been a patient at the Association for the Assistance to Children with Deficiencies for seven and a half years, since my accident. In January, I got an invitation to take part in a selection. They were looking for somebody my size, my weight and with my disability. In total, 10 candidates took part in the process, but in the end they chose me. And only then did they tell me that it was in fact to make the first kick of the competition, wearing the exoskeleton developed by the Walk Again Project.

Did the exoskeleton really make you feel like you were walking again? 
In the Itaquerão stadium, two of my dreams came true: to see the World Cup kickoff and to walk again. When I was a child, I used to play soccer a lot, and I always dreamed of attending a World Cup game. The exoskeleton receives information from the brain and transforms it into movements. This was the first prototype, which means that the World Cup opening ceremony wasn’t the end of the exoskeleton, but only the beginning. There is more to do, but the symbolic kickoff marked the opening of a new era in science.