On the Penultimate Week & Deliverables
After the 4th of July weekend we came back together to consolidate the work we have done over the past weeks. With two weeks to go, we focused our efforts on searching for a local Ethiopian organization to begin launching SurgeCare. So far we have My Biomedical Engineering — Ethiopia respond and we are still following up with the group over Facebook. As we are about to come to a close, we are also working on the final deliverables due the coming week. Almost there, team!
SurgeCare ‘build-it-yourself’ Manual
Make it locally. Build it anywhere.
The key goals of our manual to ensure that people who do receive the manual are fully equipped face minimal barrier to building SurgeCare are:
- Clear and simple. We want minimal text in easy-to-understand English. We also include pictorial instructions as an additional medium to aid understanding of the assembly steps.
- Anticipate alternatives; encourage use of locally accessible resources. We want to ensure that the people building SurgeCare are fully aware of alternative materials that can be used to build SurgeCare and still achieve the intended function. We took care to include alternative materials that we are currently aware of. We understand that available resources differ according to region and anticipate that more items can be added to the list as the manual is implemented.
- Resource-friendly/portable. We try to keep our manual as concise as possible and minimize page use while maintaining readability. This is so that organizations that do print out the manual are able to maximize distribution while keeping costs low. We also want the manual to be portable.
This week, we have added graphics to our SurgeCare manual. We aim to have the manual translated to generic Amharic for the launch, which is the main spoken language in Ethiopia. We are cognizant that there are different forms of Amharic used in the region and will try to find a partner that can translate it to the most generic form possible.
We were also advised by Kris from LifeBox to prepare short, low-bandwidth, ‘Whatsapp-able’ videos to guide tricky assembly steps. We had scrapped that idea earlier because we were told that internet access was an issue in most clinical settings, but this is something to keep in view for future development.
Our Key Stakeholders
Nonprofits — We initially canvassed nonprofits generically, targeting international nonprofit organizations like SurgeCare and LifeBox. However, we later come to realize that a product at an early stage like SurgeCare would be more compatible for partnerships with local institutions. This can help us further develop the product to suit local use — we can ameliorate issues such as language/translation and regional differences in water quality. In addition, we can also garner interest and support from local institutions as we develop the product with them and gain their trust. If all goes well, we would have a partner organization to champion our cause and help with distribution and overcome local regulations.
We have identified the following categories of local nonprofits and interest groups and have reached out to them via cold emails over Week 5.
- local academia/research groups
- Incubators, local bioengineering societies
- Nurse Societies/Biomedical Technician societies
Future Development
During our check-in with Professor Amy Herr on Thursday, she brought up the idea that we can publish our findings on Development Engineering @ UCB and HardwareX. Exciting possibilities!
…Now back to working on Deliverables. Onwards to Week 6! Go Bears!
