Trends in disaster impacts – lower mortality, but higher cost Over the past decades, number of disaster events across the world have devastated many communities. According to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), over 600,000 people died, 4.1 billion people were injured, or became homeless and needed emergency assistance over the last two decades due to natural disasters. A recent trend is observed that the substantial investments in economy and soc

Andrew Lamb, Field Ready Innovation Advisor attended the Digital Technologies for Resilience Workshop November 14-15, 2017 in Bangkok. The event was organized by FHI 360 with funding and support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This interactive workshop included technology implementers, organizations working on resilience, and investors/donors with an interest in the intersection of digital technology and resi

In North Syria, nearly two million children under the age of five were in need of nutritional services in 2016. With the war still ongoing, children are at risk of long-term consequences of not having a nutritionally varied diet. In the city of Idlib, near the Field Ready workshop, there are many families living in camps or temporary housing with little access to arable land. In addition, water is scarce and must be pumped from underground at a high cost. Field Ready has been

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

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

Have you ever tried to measure tensile strength for materials? Often, the process requires a test machine in a lab that could cost more than you expect, and is time consuming. How can you readily and affordably capture a material’s tensile strength? One successful solution involves simple mechanisms containing a power source and a tool to measure force. This post offers one alternative from Field Ready experience to make a tool that can test materials of low tensile strength,

Field Ready has worked in Nepal with Trishuli District Hospital to fix and maintain vital medical equipment using 3D printed parts. The hospital was badly affected by the earthquake, and with many of its buildings destroyed, it has been running services from tents. Harsh conditions and lack of technical staff mean that medical equipment often breaks down. There are particular challenges around mending damaged equipment; much of the equipment is donated by aid agencies and im

HAM radio enthusiasts played an important role in the Nepal earthquake response, relaying important messages to the army and police during search and rescue. However, their impact could have been amplified if there had been greater radio coverage of the earthquake affected area. Many ground stations were destroyed in the earthquake, leaving some locations unreachable. In a new initiative to increase radio coverage across Nepal - even in the event of vital ground stations in t

In the recovery from the earthquake, aid agencies are working hard to rebuild water systems in communities. However, making an effective and safe water system is challenging due to the lack of availability of suitable parts. Water systems are typically constructed from flexible HDPE piping, which should be joined by plastic fittings that seal the pipe with an o-ring. However, local markets only contain galvanised iron fittings, which do not seal to the pipes and are easy to k

Field Ready has been working with World Vision to start developing a catalogue of 3D printable medical items that can be made in Health Posts, clinics and hospitals. The items being developed will support World Visions’ program to distribute medical equipment to Health Posts damaged in the Nepal earthquake. We are developing a number of items, including everyday tweezers, Cheatle forceps, kidney trays, a fetoscope, an otoscope, a stethoscope, a glove hook, a wrist brace and a

What is it like to design a 3D printed part? We would like to share with you a recent example of the of the journey we take when designing even simple parts – in this case a set of plastic tweezers. To give some context, sets of plastic tweezers are a common item in health kits around the world and are particularly useful in primary health care (the kind of care that most people need, most of the time). They are used by staff for foreign object removal and to handle sterilise

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

Recently Field Ready was invited to speak at two Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) conferences. The first was the Scientific Day held in Delhi, India at the end of May. It was one of three similar events MSF ran this year, the other two being run in London and Johannesburg. The idea – to provide a platform to highlight new research and insight being generated by teams inside and outside of MSF. The event was very well attended and the quality of the work presented was outstandi

Catastrophe can happen in the middle of the night…when tens of thousands of people need help, urgently. The earth shakes and people are left homeless. Or fighting erupts and people are forcibly displaced, running for their lives with only the clothes on their backs. Sadly, this is not the scenario of bad movies, but an all too common reality. Think Syria, Sudan and Somalia, but the possibility doesn’t end there. People need more than food and water under such circumstances; t

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

The World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul brought together over 5,000 people - aid workers, policy specialists, researchers, vendors, donor officials and those directly affected by disasters - for the first time ever to focus on how to improve humanitarian aid. An entire section of the WHS was devoted to innovations that are shaping the field for the future. Roughly 50 separate organizations displayed everything from the latest in digital technology and telecommunications to

On Friday 29th April 2016, TEDx Patan organized their first ever TEDx Adventures event in the Innovation Lab in Kathmandu. The event was focused on bringing together actors working in reconstruction post the April 2015 Earthquake, and encourage them to engage actively in exploring how new innovations could positively reinforce their efforts. The event featured several speakers including Field Ready’s Abi Bush who focused on using 3D printing to support earthquake reconstructi

In the immediate aftermath of an emergency, there is no question that the top priority is getting what is needed, where it is needed as fast as possible. No matter how this is done, whether through internationally shipping water pipes and filters, or setting up a rapid manufacturing space to supply key components for water supply system or makeshift hospitals, preserving life is the only goal. The recovery and reconstruction period that follows is a time when the focus shifts