Sharing best practices in Biomedical Engineering

By | May 9, 2022
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Collecting and supporting the expansion and sharing of best practices in Biomedical Engineering (BME) can constitute a transformative strategy toward better health, through universal health coverage and more equitable and accessible medical technologies, especially in low resource settings. 

Best practices can be drivers of change – accelerating progress and inspiring role models – and may involve multiple dimensions including scientific-technological issues, hedonomics, learning/teaching approaches, management of physical and human resources, and implementation of relevant regulations.

Thanks to the support of the UBORA community and of the IFMBE working group “BME in Low and Middle Income (LMI) Settings”, a questionnaire was designed to assess the current state-of-the-art of BME in low resources settings through the perceived impact, maturity, and implementation challenges of its multifaceted dimensions (mature and forthcoming technologies, design methodologies, education, regulations, and policymaking). The questionnaire was administered to professionals with recognized experience in the field of BME and its application to LMI settings, thanks to the contribution of IFMBE, EAMBES, E4C, and ABEC.

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UBORA @ E4C Seminar Series

By | November 25, 2020
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The UBORA e-platform was presented during the “Engineering for Change” E4C Seminar series.

E4C is an international community of engineers, scientists, NGO, innovators working development of affordable, locally appropriate and sustainable solutions to the most pressing humanitarian challenges. E4C was founded, among the others by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and Engineers Without Borders USA.

E4C’s Seminar Series features academic laboratories researching solutions to meet the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. The Open Source Medical Devices, designed and promoted through the UBORA platform, are already bringing personalized and rapid responses to global healthcare concerns. They have proven fundamental in a rapid, effective, and safe response to the COVID-19 crisis.

For more information on E4C seminars, visit the E4C website!

Winner of the UBORA Design Competition 2020

By | June 23, 2020
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We are glad to announce the winners of the UBORA Design Competition 2020. We received a total of 28 applications from Europe, Africa and North America, involving more than 100 developers.

The first 4 projects will be awarded in a special session during the BootCamp on COVID-19, organized by UNECA, UNESCO, and the South Africa DSI, where they will have the opportunity to present their projects, in a 5 minutes pitch.

The session will be held on ZOOM at 16:00 EAT (click for the link, no password is required)

Thanks to the support of Protocol Labs, we will be able to support projects up to the 10th position, in the actual implementation of their projects.

Here the final table for the top-10 projects:

Project
Awarded Portable Ventilator
Aid system for prone positioning of patients with ARDS
Low-cost oxygen saturation monitoring system for multiple patients in acute care
LearnFromCOVID-19
SupportedSterilization tools for Filtering Facepiece Respirators
aiCOVID-19
Covid-19 open source wearable
DPI vent
3DPI Mask - Filtering mask to protect against particles
COVID-19 diagnosis with S.P.R. Biosensor

We finally would like to thank all the participants, for their efforts, their enthusiasms and the brilliant idea they shared with the worldwide community

The design BootCamp on COVID-19

By | June 15, 2020
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The Youth Innovators Competition and Design Bootcamp 2020, organized by UNECA, UNESCO, DSI of South Africa, with the support of the UBORA platform and EngineeringForChange, will start on June 15.

cover photo, Image may contain: 7 people, people sitting and table

The Bootcamp will run on-line over two weeks, from Monday to Friday (15-19 and 22-26 June). Students will have the opportunity to listen to outstanding keynotes, follow classes and workshops on Device Design, and will work in group on a medical device project to solve one of the following challenges related to COVID-19:

  1. Enhance medical devices and personal protection gear design and fabrication
  2. Alternative tools for efficient and effective contact tracing and isolation
  3. New approaches for testing and diagnosis
  4. Reliable and cost-effective medical devices for therapy

Here the detailed programme

UBORA design competition 2020 has been launched

By | March 16, 2020
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Considering current global emergency with the COVID-19 pandemia and the increasing risk of infectious disease outbreaks in our globalized world, the UBORA 2020 International Design Competition concentrates on technological solutions aimed at providing an integral management for present pandemia and for eventual future outbreaks.

Image result for corona virus

These solutions, in the form of well-documented medical device projects and shared as open-source technologies through the UBORA online infrastructure (https://platform.ubora-biomedical.org/), have the potential of supporting healthcare professionals in the ongoing emergency and of alleviating patients suffering the consequences of current and future outbreaks. Design according to EU regulation (MDR 745/2017 & 746/2017) and taking into account internationally recognized standards is expected, so as to guarantee patients’ safety and to support technological transfer to society.  

For more information please visit the competition page.

An UBORA device on NTV Uganda

By | August 31, 2019
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The Infant Warmer developed by UIRI presented on prime time news

A portable neonate warmer, developed by UIRI following the UBORA methodology, was aired on NTV Uganda prime time news.

The intended use of this medical device is to provide the appropriate thermal protection and temperature monitoring for neonates with hypothermia that are being transported to a health facility from home.

Co-design open-source medical devices: how to minimize the human error using UBORA

By | July 26, 2019
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Health is a fundamental aspect of quality of life, as it indirectly has effects on the capacity to produce and consume goods and services. Technology plays a fundamental role in improving the quality of health, being the fulcrum of an effective healthcare system. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by all United Nations Member States, clearly emphasizes the impact of the lack of appropriate medical devices on health conditions.

The UBORA team gave its contribution to the discussions during the 41st  International Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference, organized by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society organizes, which was held in Berlin, Germany from July 23–27, 2019. 

The paper “Co-design open-source medical devices: how to minimize the human error using UBORA e-infrastructure” was presented by Licia Di Pietro during the session of “Point of care – Global challenges”. The presentation is available at the following link: EMBC presentation.

ABEC Design Competition: results of the second stage are online

By | July 22, 2019
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The results of the second stage of ABEC Design competition 2019 are online!

For the 40 best-ranked projects full-board will be provided for one team member to attend the ABEC Design School 2019 to be held at Uganda Industrial Research Center in Kampala, Uganda, from 7th to 11th October 2018.

For the first 28 projects developed by teams from African Institutions, travel grant, from one team member, will be also awarded.

Priority for enrollment will be given accordingly to the final ranking, up to a total of 40 participants.

All the participants will be personally contacted by ABEC Management Office, for detailed instructions, regarding travel and accommodation. 

Finally, we will invite ALL of you to participate in the UBORA e-infrastructure to further develop your projects, which will take you through the design, classification and fabrication process. You will be able to co-create with other designers with the help of mentors from industry and academia. We hope to count on you as pioneers for the design of safe medical devices to enable access to quality healthcare for all.

The Africa Blockchain Conference

By | July 4, 2019
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On the 3rd and 4th of July 2019, the Africa Blockchain Conference 2019 was held in Kampala with the theme ‘Preparing Africa for the Fourth Industrial Revolution’: it was the largest blockchain conference in Africa, hosted by the President of Uganda, the 6th President of Mauritius, the CEO of Finance, the Ugandan Governor of the Central Bank and many other business and policy leaders. An exhibition was held in parallel to the conference where the Uganda Industrial Research Institute team had the opportunity to exhibit the infant warmer, one of the projects they developed using the UBORA e-infrastructure.

UIRI presenting the Portable Neonate Warmer to the Prime Minister of Uganda, Rt. Hon. Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda at the Africa Blockchain Tech Expo

UBORA present at the 2019 International CDIO Conference

By | June 28, 2019
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The UBORA educational model, hybridizing project-based learning and service learning, presented at the 2019 International CDIO Conference

Prof. Luis Ignacio Ballesteros Sánchez from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and UBORA professor and mentor has attended the 2019 International CDIO Conference in Aarhus, Denmark, for presenting the UBORA educational model. Devices developed following needs proposed by ASPADIR foundation, by members of the Spanish Transplants Organization and by hospitals and primary care units of the Madrid region have been presented as case studies. Such devices have been developed by UPM students within courses on “Bioengineering Design” (MSc in Industrial Engineering) and “MedTech” (MSc in Industrial Organization), in which the UBORA educational model, hybridizing project-based learning and service learning is applied. The UBORA e-infrastructure has been used for guiding such developments.

Example of a medical device for supporting liver transplantation

The CDIO™ Initiative is an innovative educational framework for training the next generation of engineers. The framework provides students with an education stressing engineering fundamentals set in the context of “Conceiving – Designing – Implementing – Operating” (CDIO) real-world systems and products. To date, more than 150 of the best engineering schools worldwide, including UBORA partners UPM and KTH, take active part in this initiative aimed at “reinventing engineering education”. The UBORA educational model is among the most relevant examples of CDIO-related strategies applied to biomedical engineering education. The UBORA team has been present in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 CDIO Conferences.