We intend to address the long view by donating engineering research and development expertise by inviting the underserved community as a key stakeholders during medical device design. All of our designs will be made open-source and entered into the public domain, and will be made available online for anyone to use.

By enabling underserved communities with the ability to manufacture their own medical equipment, we are hoping to create jobs and help underserved communities keep more of their money. If underserved communities can manufacture and service their own medical equipment, they won’t need to send money to developed countries to buy their goods and services.

We intend to address the immediate needs by refurbishing surplus equipment and sending it overseas. Refurbishing equipment has dual purposes. It is a teaching opportunity for future clinical engineers to learn how equipment work, troubleshoot and diagnose problems in a controlled environment and keeps durable goods out of landfills. We intend to triage them and send the equipment with appropriate supplies to fix them overseas.

In many parts of the world, medical education requires students to pay for the opportunity to learn through apprenticeship, or a residency program. They also need to buy their own laptop/computer as they will need to have access to computers outside of computer labs in universities. Through scholarships, OpenOR International is committed to help lessen the financial burden for students by providing financial aid that can cover a variety of educational costs.

As things change, we’ll look for ways to serve the community better.