Business
In this episode I'm going to be talking about how and why we've decided to work on an open source Oxygen Concentrator with Joel Chaney, the Innovation Program Manager at EnAccess, as well as Phil Bonnett, an anesthesiologist who has worked in a hospital in Zambia, in Africa. Normally I interview people who have recently completed a project that was funded by EnAccess. This time around we're talking about a different sort of topic: project that we just recently got started with, which is an open source Oxygen Concentrator. We call the project Open O2. The Open O2 project is really different than anything we’ve done in the past - we’re working with multiple communities, individuals, companies, and doctors. The inspiration for the Open O2 project came because EnAccess wanted to do something relevant for the world we’re living in now, which is under a lot of stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. EnAccess is uniquely positioned to help - we are experienced innovators and understand the unique challenges that are facing low resource settings, and underserved communities. So we decided to support the design and manufacturing of an open source Oxygen Concentrators for these underserved communities. We want to quickly get to a working design that can be locally built, repaired and used in settings where we know access to energy is an issue.The more people that know about this idea, and who may be able to contribute, the better chance we have at success. Visit enaccess.org for more information.