COVID-19 Response from Olin Alumni By Gui Cavalcanti ’09

A few weeks ago I stopped being able to make robots due to global supply chain failure, sparked by China's 780 million person quarantine and country-wide shutdown. As I read more about COVID19 spreading across the globe, I realized the pandemic would intersect horrifically with this global supply chain failure, and we would soon need open-source, locally-manufacturable solutions for medical supplies, because centralized manufacturing was already failing.

I then started an effort to document COVID19 and its treatment, and then find, medically review, and index open source medical supply solutions. This effort only started 9 days ago, and now has over 33,000 people collaborating on a Facebook group and a "flash NGO" supervising organization with 230 people in it that contains over 80 writers/transcriptionists/researchers, 28 medical professionals reviewing open source medical supply designs, a team of 32 moderators keeping Facebook orderly and productive, fabrication groups ranging from makerspaces to country-wide machine shop chains that represent tens to hundreds of thousands of fabricators across the world, and more.

I am incredibly proud of the crucial work that we have done thus far, and can only hope we can make a difference in the challenges to come.”

Learn more from recent press that Gui and his team has received:

CBC Radio Article 3/20 here

LiveScience Article 3/20

Interested in finding a regional effort or helping in some way?  Join the:

Open Source COVID-19 Medical Supplies Facebook Group