Open-source biomedical devices for reinventing the medical industry

By | May 5, 2018
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CORDIS, the Community Research and Development Information Service, published a nice paper about UBORA,  presenting it collaborative and open source approach for medical device design which will help address patients’ needs and citizens’ views.

In the spirit of Kahawa Declaration, UBORA “will enable the transformation of the field of biomedical engineering towards the democratisation of medical technology.” It is shifting the current paradigm where patients, doctors and engineers have no choice but to accept medical technology without a say in its design, development or usability.

For the full paper, visit the CORDIS portal.

1st Healthcare Innovation Conference organized by the Ugandan Academy for Health Innovation and Impact

By | April 4, 2018
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The UBORA team at UIRI exhibited at the 1st Healthcare Innovation Conference organized by the Ugandan Academy for Health Innovation and Impact, on March 23rd-24th in Kampala.

The Ugandan Academy for Health Innovation and Impact was formed after a memorandum of understanding between the Ugandan Ministry of Health, Infectious Diseases Institute, Janssen, the pharmaceutical companies of Johnson and Johnson and the Johnson and Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust. The Ugandan Academy’s Mission is to improve health outcomes through innovations in clinical care, capacity building, systems strengthening and research, which inform policy and practice, with a strong emphasis on HIV and tuberculosis. As part of this mission, the Academy hosted the inaugural health innovations conference to congregate relevant stakeholders, showcase healthcare innovation within Uganda and discuss issues pertaining to the adoption of healthcare technology.

Design Competition 2018: results of the first stage

By | March 30, 2018
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A total of 126 projects were submitted, and of these 87 were selected to go to the second stage. At this link, you can find the list of eligible projects. We want to thank all of you for participating with passion and enthusiasm in this competition.

Instructions for participating to the second stage are available on the competition page.

 

We will invite you ALL to participate in the UBORA e-infrastructure to further develop your projects: you will receive the invitation by email. You will be able to co-create with other designers with the help of mentors from industry and academia.

 

The UBORA managing group has been nominated

By | January 28, 2018
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The UBORA consortium is pleased to announce that the UBORA managing group has been nominated. The group, as foreseen in the work plan for the development of the e-infrastructure, has the mission to supervise the activities on UBORA e-infrastructure, such as promoting the discussions on the forums, formalizing engineering problems starting from medical needs.

The group is composed of talented PhD and master students, designers and technicians from UBORA partners. Click the names to see their profiles.

#NameInstitutionRole
1Licia Di PietroUniversity of PisaPhD student
2 Friedrich KaasikUniversity of TartuPhD student
3 Duncan KamauKenyatta UniversityTechnician
4Paul NiyitangaUIRIDesigner
5Hudson KagodaUIRIDesigner
6Adrian MartinezUniversidad Politecnica de MadridMaster student
7Rodrigo ZapataUniversidad Politecnica de MadridMaster student

 

UBORA design competition 2018 has been launched

By | January 10, 2018
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The UBORA design competition 2018, announced during the closing ceremony of the UBORA design school in Nairobi,  officially started in the first days of January.

The competition seeks innovative biomedical engineering solutions from students (individuals or teams) addressing healthcare problems faced by the ageing society promoting Healthy Ageing, enabling individuals to live both longer and healthier lives, or can be used in treatments of age-related diseases, syndromes, and disabilities.

For the best-ranked projects, travel from the university town to Pisa and back and full-board will be provided for one team member to attend the UBORA Design School 2018 to be held at University of Pisa (Pisa – Italy) from 3rd to 7th September 2018.

The first stage deadline is on March 1st: you can find all the information here.

You can also help us in disseminating the competition by printing and attaching the competition flyer in your university! Thanks in advance!

UBORA Design School 2017

By | December 18, 2017
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The First design school, one of the cornerstone of UBORA, was held the second week of December 2017. Students, with the help of mentors, spent an intense week at Kenyatta University, in Nairobi (Kenya), learning how to design affordable and safe medical devices.

The school is one of the instruments that the UBORA project has planned promote the open-source approach in biomedical engineering through its e-infrastructure, whose current version is named “Kahawa” from the name of the area where Kenyatta University is placed.

The e-infrastructure was presented during the Opening Ceremony of the School, in presence of local authorities, including the Vice Chancellor of Kenyatta University, and representatives of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). 

A moment of the Opening Ceremony with authorities of Kenyatta Universities and UNECA

The school offered to students classes on projects development, according to CDIO approach, empowered with lessons on medical device regulation and usability. Specific workshops on electronic and physical prototyping gave students additional tools for completing the projects assigned per groups at the beginning of the school. 

One of the workshops, held by Prof. Mannan Mridha of KTH

Speeches from international recognized experts gave them opportunity to understand the current and future trends in the field of biomedical engineering and its relevance in healthcare systems.

Continue reading →

UBORA @ Maker Faire 2017

By | December 4, 2017
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The UBORA project was one of the projects selected for the Safe and security for Industry and Healthcare booth of the Department of Ingegneria dell’Informazione of University of Pisa at Maker Faire 2017, in Rome, the largest European event dedicated to makers and innovators. 

For 3 day (December 1st-3rd), thousands of people had visited the large area of Fiera di Roma, where Fablabs, Universities, Companies and Makers presented the state of the art of the DIY activities, and the most recent enabling technologies for crafting and innovating.

In our booth, people learned the potentialities of augmented reality in the surgery room (Vostars Project), how robots will co-work in the next future (Iliad Project), and the importance UMI technologies in teaching STEM (UMI-SCI-ED project), and of course the new tools for collaborative design of medical devices thanks to UBORA.

Visitors had the opportunity to interact, for the first time, with a demo version of the UBORA e-infrastructure, a many students demonstrated interest for the next Design Competition.

 

UBORA e-infrastructure preview at DMD Europe 2017

By | November 16, 2017
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The preview of UBORA e-infrastructure was presented at the last Design of Medical Device conference in Eindhoven (the Netherlands) by Prof. Andrés Diaz Lantada. 

This version of UBORA, with the code name of “Kahawa”, from the area where Kenyatta University is placed,  will be used by participants of the First UBORA Design School.

UNIPI and ITS-Maker together for design affordable medical devices

By | October 5, 2017
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Students from the Master Programme in Biomedical Engineering of University of Pisa will closely collaborate with teachers and students of ITS-Makers in Fornovo di Taro (Italy) for design affordable medical devices in the spirit of UBORA. 

ITS-Maker is Emilia Romagna’s Higher Institute of Mechanics, Mechatronics, Motoristics and Packaging. It provides top quality biannual post diploma courses, geared towards gaining access to the best mechanics and mechatronics companies in Emilia Romagna. 

For some pictures of the meeting, click here!

UBORA presented at Festival della Robotica

By | September 12, 2017
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The first 9 months activities of UBORA project were presented during the Humanitarian Cooperation Day of Festival della Robotica in Pisa on September 12.

Starting from the backgroud at the basis of UBORA consortium, including the great contribution of ABEC and UNECA, the group of University of Pisa illustrated the advancement in the e-infrastructure implementation and some projects developed by students in the framework of the First UBORA design competition.  

Our acknoledgment go to all the students who prepared the projects: you can discover them here.