Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog! Last week was packed with amazing activities, from visiting neonatal surgeons in national hospitals to commemorating the expansion of NEST360 initiatives in Tanzania to showcasing our projects to the President of Rice University and advisory board members! There’s a lot to cover, so I’ll get right into it!

We started the week by visiting Muhimbili National Hospital to get feedback on our projects from pediatricians and neonatologists. As the largest hospital in the country, Muhimbili often receives patients from referral hospitals in surrounding regions, so it has access to the most resources and surgeons. As such, we wanted to speak with doctors from this hospital first, as they could give us a broad idea of the areas in which the most support is needed.

We spent three days receiving general advice on all four of our projects (low-cost gastroschisis bag, neonatal temperature sensor, infant transport incubator, and phototherapy machine). The feedback was extremely constructive, ranging from the intricate mechanisms and features of the designs to which materials would work best. There are many factors we hadn’t initially considered, and the doctors advised us to keep the end user – the patient – in mind during all phases of the engineering process. Suran and I quickly learned that our ideas needed to be taken apart and put back together, over and over again, to make an efficient and sustainable product.

We’ve made lots of headway incorporating the feedback of the doctors, and we already have an initial prototype of the gastroschisis bag that resembles a commercial one!

 

Later in the week, President DesRoches of Rice University, several Rice360 advisory board members, and representatives of NEST360 arrived in Dar for the NEST360 Phase 2 launch!

The launch celebrated the past 5 years of improved neonatal health outcomes due to collaborations between local hospitals and NEST360. It also marked the beginning of new partnerships and technological expansion, with NEST360 committing another 5 years towards increasing accessibility to medical technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa. The ceremony was nationally televised, and government officials even spoke at the event to endorse the efforts of the collaboration!

 

 

 

On Friday, the visitors from Rice University came to DIT to witness a showcase of the design studio and all of its current projects. It was a privilege to show the work that we’re doing to members of the Rice community and give them a glimpse into our day-to-day. After lunch, we said goodbye to our friends from Rice, and just like that week two was in the books!

 

 

 

 

 

Well, almost. The weekend brought its own adventures, namely beach soccer! We took a short ferry to a nice beach with some of our friends from DIT and our mentor, Joel. We set up some sticks as the goals, and ended up playing until there was no more sunlight. I was quickly humbled by the terrain and the skills of the DIT students; playing in the sand is harder than it looks!

That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed! It’s hard to believe that June is almost over; it feels like just yesterday when we landed here. Looking forward to more wonderful experiences. Stay tuned!

 

Aryun