Reuf (pictured left) is the Technical Advisor to our Iraq project. He is originally from Sarajevo, Bosnia. So he is intimately familiar with the realities of modern conflict, the process of reconstruction and what it takes to locally make solutions using partnership, ingenuity, technological know-how and hard work. Reuf has extensive experience in making, engineering and training based in part on having his own company, HIVE Creative Agency, where he is a 3D print lab owner a

Field Ready was recently invited to speak at Additive International (formerly known as the International Conference on Additive Manufacturing & 3D Printing) in Nottingham, UK. The event took place from July 10-12 and brought together academic and industry experts. This year there were 19 speakers and numerous exhibitors from various sectors. The conference served as an opportunity for us to learn from others working across various sectors in additive manufacturing and share h

After spending a fun-filled week with our child-designers, we had a set of 12 animals to be placed inside different combinations of transparent soap, and it was time for production. The original plan had been to carry two 3D printers with us into Iraq, but at the last minute, additional restrictions due to the closure of Kurdistan’s international airspace made that impossible, and a plan B was born. Field Ready has a wide network of makers in different locations, and with add

Field Ready's Dara Dotz recently spoke at the Exponential Medicine conference in San Diego, California. The conference is an immersive, hands-on program focused on the implications of breakthrough developments and brings together specialists in an array of fields, from biopharma to innovators. On November 6th, Dara spoke on additive manufacturing for the medical sector. Dara also led a breakout session where she explained how we use this technology (and others) in the field.

What might a local manufacturing kit look like? What's in the box? This depends on what we are trying to make and where. We've been thinking about how we select items and manufacturing techniques that we want to "package up" into kits so that others can make them. Every item we make in the field we develop to a different stage. Sometimes we’ve made one of a item, sometimes many. Sometimes it's bespoke, a custom item for a specific need; sometimes it's a reusable design and

Baby warmers are essential to maintain infants body temperature and to keep them safe and secure. They are an expensive item which can be rendered useless if key parts are broken. At a hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal there were many baby beds with corner brackets that were broken. The hospital was unable to simply order new corners because the baby warmer was no longer in production. As a result, hospital workers improvised a design to try and fix the broken corners, but due to

We've been thinking about our theory of change with help from the Humanitarian Innovation Fund recently, and this has helped us clarify why the "kits" program matters. Field Ready aims to ensure that everyone has access to the supplies they need, when and where they need them To make this a reality, we need to improve manufacturing capabilities for humanitarian response, and our focus is on local manufacturing. For this to be viable at scale, aid agencies and governments ne

Field Ready enables our most useful designs to be replicated in other places; by anyone, anywhere and at anytime. This is done by creating “kits” which provide all the equipment and information needed for reliable local manufacture of key supplies. This also identifies business models which will enable these kits to be adopted at scale. This is part of our strategy to “scale up” our impact, so more people can benefit from our work, and so it can be scaled up more rapidly, inc

World Vision Nepal recently procured 430 improved cook stoves from South African-based company African Clean Energy to distribute as part of the Earthquake response. The stoves are beautifully made and well regarded in the sector, but the team at World Vision identified that the knob used to adjust the temperature was at risk of being lost or broken in the Nepal context. Transit via Nepal’s rough, mountainous roads can be very tough on humanitarian supplies being shipped to t

One of the more common requests Field Ready receives for 3D printing in Nepal includes educational models for teaching reconstruction practices. Build Change has a module that focuses on explaining the correct arrangement of beams and columns for concrete rebar structure. Field Ready developed a simple educational tool to enable course participants to experiment with different arrangements of columns and beams. Tools like this can be created for any number of educational cont

Lack of available safe water pipe fittings is a key issue Field Ready has identified in Nepal. In IDP camps improvised pipe fittings were commonly being used, along with inappropriate metal fittings, both of which leak considerably. When Field Ready 3D printed a replacement pipe fitting we were struck by the observation that a wide range of pipe sizes and connection configurations are needed. And the fact that not all pipes were of the expected standard sizes. Since those ini

We are deeply honored that our friend, co-founder and designer extraordinaire, Dara Dotz, is being recognized by the White House as a “Champions of Change for Making.” We can think of no one who deserves this recognition more. Dara was selected after an exhaustive search across the US to find people who are making a deep and meaningful impact through their work. Dara led our first program in Haiti, has been instrumental in US-based activities and drives Field Ready’s mission

Field Ready has been selected from 1,300 programs worldwide because we are one of the “100 most innovative nonprofits and social enterprises of 2016.” The organization, Classy.org, is a fundraising platform for social impact organizations. Since 2011, they have enabled millions of people across 300,000 individual campaigns to help fund more than 1,800 organizations. Classy say “Award Nominees represent an elite pool of innovative programs that have the greatest potential to d

Field Ready today started an intense hands-on 8-week experience at the Singularity University campus in the heart of Silicon Valley. We joined this program to help us develop the organization further. We’re committed to learning and we taking advantage of SU’s unique global educational position to connect with leaders on business, leadership, product, and marketing development. With an acceptance rate of less than 1%, we are joined by three extraordinary companies which all

For the last five months, Field Ready has been exploring how best to introduce 3D printing in the field as a way to address supply chain issues in Nepal after the earthquake last year. This would allow specific parts to be quickly created as and when needed. One of the major challenges we have faced to date is the fact that creating the files needed to print parts is a difficult task, requiring a high degree of both engineering and computing proficiency (not many aid workers

The Syrian civil war is now in its fifth year. There are nearly 14 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria with at least 6.5 million internally displaced people and 4.4 million Syrian refugees in neighboring countries. As many as 400,000 people have been killed. It is without a doubt the humanitarian catastrophe of our time. Field Ready must do something to aid the suffering. With a grant from the NextFab, through the FabFoundation, and working with severa

Field Ready’s vision aims to diminish and eventually eliminate long, costly procurement procedures by ensuring that aid agencies can simply make what is needed, when it is needed, where it is needed. This is particularly important for Health Posts, small medical centres which provide a first point of care for people in remote areas. At present, aid agencies run needs assessments at target Health Posts to identify key equipment needs. With the day-to-day challenges of procurem