Spring 2007 Incubator Project Summaries

DtM recruited seven student teams from MIT, RISD, Stanford University and Arizona State University to develop specific prototypes and to conduct market research for the Infant Incubator project. DtM’s design teams included: seven students and professors Sebastian Fixson and Matthew Kressy from MIT/RISD course 15.783j “Product Design and Development,” who developed a “works-like” prototype; four students and Professor Jan Klein from MIT Leaders for Manufacturing (LfM) “Tiger Team,” who researched market segmentation and product feature sets; thirteen students with professors James Patell, David Beach, and T.A. Sarah Stein Greenberg, from Stanford’s d.school course “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability,” who also worked on a number of “works-like” prototypes; and two mechanical engineering students with Professor Winslow Burleson, from Arizona State University, who worked on a temperature control system for the incubator.

Student teams were mentored by volunteers from IDEO members: Colleen Cotter, Mekayla Beaver, Kate Schreiber, Elizabeth Johansen, Yona Belfort, and Jeff Chapin. In addition to mentoring students, these volunteers helped synthesize field data, conducted U.S. based user research at St. Elizabeth's Hospital, and participated in the evaluation of student design concepts. DtM is very grateful for their services. Final prototypes were reviewed by domain experts from Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford University Hospital, and experts in engineering, design and manufacturing.

Below is a summary of student projects and their results:

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DtM CEO Panel Speaker at CIMIT Innovation Congress

The CIMIT Innovation Congress in November brought together leaders from industry, academia and government to collaborate and explore ways in which technology innovations are catalyzing change in healthcare. This year’s event highlighted innovative devices and procedures being developed in the research laboratories of Boston’s teaching hospitals in collaboration with local engineers and scientists.

DtM’s CEO, Timothy Prestero, was a panel speaker for the conversation, “Innovative Technology and Global Health: Barriers and Opportunities,” which discussed healthcare solutions in environments needing cost-effective, locally relevant responses. This panel also highlighted the development of technologies designed to protect mothers and infants both in the United States and internationally.

Moderator:
Kristian R. Olson, MD, MPH, DTM & H (Lond.), Clinical Educator Svc, Department of Medicine, MGH; CIMIT Global Health Initiative Leader; MGH Center for Global Health
Senior Advisor; Instructor, HMS

Panel:
Timothy Prestero, SM Mechanical Engineering & SM Oceanographic Engineering; CEO & Co-Founder, Design that Matters
Thomas Burke, MD, Director, Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health
Jonathan Rosen, PhD, Executive Director, Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization, Boston University

Stanford Incubator Team Elected 'Entrepreneur Idol'

"The budding capitalists at Stanford University on Friday held "Entrepreneur Idol," a takeoff on the Fox Broadcasting talent show. Instead of singing tunes by Bon Jovi or Burt Bacharach, 48 students each had one minute to pitch their best business ideas. The winner would land $2,000 in seed money and connections to a top-level venture firm — but first had to win over a panel of four venture capitalists and one technology blogger.

Linus Liang, 25, a first-year graduate student in computer science, held up a diapered baby doll.

"What if I could tell you how you can save 4 million babies a year?" he asked. His idea: create a low-cost incubator that could help infants in developing countries. [...]

The five finalists pitched again. Liang brought out the doll again for his pitch. Charles River partner Saar Gur called the prop "questionable."

But as with "American Idol," the viewers decided. The crowd of rejected contestants and student spectators clapped and cheered the loudest for Liang, who took home the $2,000 grand prize.

He just smiled to the audience, then scurried to the judges for more advice." -- from the LA Times article "Stanford students vie to be 'Entrepreneur Idol'", by Michelle Quinn, 14 Mar 2007.

Linus and his teammates have taken on DtM's low cost infant incubator project as part of "Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability", a d.school course taught by Profs. Jim Patell and David Beach through the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Engineering school, and the Institute of Design.

DtM Fellow Matt Eckelman on the Nepal Field Study

Matt Eckelman is a graduate student in environmental engineering at Yale, working on energy modeling and green industrial design. After returning from the Peace Corps in Nepal, he worked with Design that Matters as Fellow for the spring and summer before returning to school. Matt is a great resource to DtM as he is always willing to be shipped off to a foreign country for a great cause.

In 2005, I was freshly back from the Peace Corps in Nepal and working with Design that Matters at their home base in Cambridge. When Tim called me earlier this year to ask if I wanted to help out on an incubator project in Kathmandu, of course it was easy to say yes...

I had the great fortune to be able to return to Nepal twice: once with Tim in January for an initial assessment, and once in March with the Stanford/IDEO team. For both trips, I was in the multi-task position of acting as designer, guide, and translator. As such, I was somewhat apprehensive when, on our second full day in Nepal, we split up the team and sent Alex and Colleen with a guide to Chautara, very close to Tibet, while Leslie, Linus, Nick, and I conducted interviews at a couple of hospitals east of Kathmandu. For the entire trip I had been impressed with the Stanford students--how thorough they were in their questioning, how excited they were about the project, how well they seemed to adapt to the often chaotic streets of Kathmandu. I was even more impressed when, after a long bus trip back to the capital, the teams came together with stories and insights from both trips.

Alex and Colleen related the inspiring work of the one doctor who was running an entire district hospital; he minced no words in his desire for a cheap, functional incubator. Our team talked about the young nurses we had met who had been trained at the Children’s Hospital in Kathmandu, who so clearly wanted to do the best they could with the pair of available incubators in their neonatal wards. It was inspiring to watch the team synthesize all of the different information from our daily observations--I had never seen so many post-it notes on a wall before--with Colleen bringing many of the techniques from her work at IDEO to bear on this new project.

I think it was sometime in the middle of watching the Stanford students create a mine map of local incubator functions that I realized I wasn’t really guiding the team at all on the actual project. They had succeeded on their own in taking in the findings from our trip in January, generating new design ideas, and even presenting them to Ray Avery, the founder of Medicine Mondiale, DtM's client.

IDEO Volunteer Colleen Cotter on the Nepal Field Study

Colleen Cotter is a human centered designer at IDEO, focused on designing products and experiences for children and families. Her product design footprint spans an array of industries: educational, medical, consumer products, food and beverages, and toys. Colleen volunteered her vacation time to mentor the Stanford students during their research trip to Nepal.

We’ve just returned from a whirlwind immersion into Nepali neonatal care.

The overall goal of our project is to develop a low-cost incubator and isolation unit for infant care in developing countries. We began by focusing this exploration on the needs and constraints of Nepal, with the intention of later broadening our reach to neonatal care units all over the world.

In order to truly understand the extraordinary needs of Nepal, it was critical for us to perform our research in context. By visiting Nepal, we quickly gained direct exposure to many factors that will influence the look, feel, and function of our prototype.

In three days, we visited six hospitals (both urban and rural), meeting with dozens of inspirational stakeholders including directors, doctors, nurses, parents, and technicians. We experienced first hand the incredible barriers neonatal units face, ranging from the varied standards of cleanliness to the struggling Nepali infrastructure for health care. We met with one doctor who serves as the sole physician for an entire region of Nepal, the director of the hospital, as well as the maintenance man for all hospital equipment.

In physically transporting ourselves around Nepal, we came to understand how challenging it is for patients to access health care, and for health care workers to access needed resources. The rural communities are at an especially high risk and pose unique challenges that affect the design of the prototype.

Our experiences highlighted both constraints and opportunities for our project. While in Nepal, the team applied a design filter, translating most observed struggles into design challenges. With each struggle, the team members asked themselves, how might we make this experience better?

By taking the time to observe in a NICU for several hours the team gained insights into how nurses interact with their patients, equipment, and space. Over time, many opportunities for improvement became obvious and the team was naturally brainstorming solutions. Easier access to the infant and clearer communication between alarms and nursing staff surfaced as critical issues to explore.

I’m enormously proud of the efforts put forth by this talented team. The team is currently working to translate our insights into innovative incubator prototypes. Stay tuned!

Incuabtor Field Team Leaves for Nepal

This Sunday, IDEO volunteer Colleen Cotter and DtM Fellow Matt Eckelman will lead a group of Stanford University graduate students to Nepal for week of in-depth user interviews and observations at maternity wards and infant care facilities in and around Kathmandu.

The students have taken on DtM's low cost infant incubator project as part of "Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability", a d.school course taught by Profs. Jim Patell and David Beach through the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Engineering school, and the Institute of Design.

The goal of the field study is to develop a deeper understanding of both the product context and user perspectives. The resulting insights will drive the development of the student incubator prototypes during the Spring quarter course. We expect great things from the field team, and we hope they enjoy the buff momos!

DtM Field Study in Kathmandu, Nepal

DtM's Timothy Prestero and Matt Eckelman just returned from a one-week field study in Kathmandu, Nepal for our new Low-Cost Infant Incubator project. The field study was a great success. We visited infant intensive care units at five different hospitals in Kathamandu, and interviewed everyone from doctors to nurses to parents to maintenance staff and the cleaning lady. We've learned an enormous amount about the needs for neonatal care, and it's clear that we have the opportunity to make a huge difference in the health care for newborns in developing countries.

Student project teams are now getting underway at MIT, Stanford, the Rhode Island School of Design and Arizona State University. We have a follow-up trip to Nepal coming up on March 19th, which will provide the student teams an opportunity to conduct their own field research.

Incubator Research Begins in Boston

DtM has started initial product research on our low-cost infant incubator project. Working with a volunteer team from IDEO, we are conducting interviews and observations at local neonatal intensive care units to develop a basic understanding of infant care--in terms of both medical technologies and practices. We are also looking to collect insights from practioners as to what the aspirations are for infant care in the NICU, how existing incubators help and where they see opportunities for improvement. The US-based research is an important step in preparing for similar interviews and observations in Nepal.

We are grateful for the support of Dr. Mandy Belfort and Dr. Terri Gorman at the St. Elizabeth's Medical Center NICU who invited us to visit their facility. We would also like to thank hospital staff members Charlene Bent-Mack and Gina McKinnon, who patiently answered about one million "What's that?" and "How does that work?" questions. Thank you to IDEO's Elizabeth Johanson and Yona Belfort for helping to set up the interviews, and to IDEO volunteers Jeff Chapin, Mekayla Beaver and Kate Schreiber for donating their time and talents during the interviews.

DtM launches Low-Cost Infant Incubator Project

Design that Matters has partnered with Medicine Mondiale on a new project with the goal of transforming newborn care in developing countries. Worldwide, every year, over four million infants die within a month of birth, as a result of prematurity, low birthweight and infection. At least one million of these deaths could be prevented by providing these infants with an incubator--a clean, warm environment in which to grow stronger. Millions more infants would benefit from incubators in terms of shorter hospital stays and better long-term health outcomes.

Our client, Medicine Mondiale, has challenged DtM to design a prototype incubator that provide the basic functions of temperature control, air filtration and oxygen regulation. Conventional infant incubators developed for western markets can cost over US$20,000; our target cost is roughly US$200.

Since project launch, we have recruited five student teams at MIT, Stanford, the Rhode Island School of Design and Arizona State University. Each team is concentrating on different aspects of the design concept development and market research. In addition, IDEO has committed staff time and resources to product research and mentoring student teams. The initial user research and product testing will take place in Nepal, where Medicine Mondiale has an extensive network of contacts among health care providers and local manufacturers. You can follow the action on this project through the incubator pages on the DtM news blog.

Medicine Mondiale is a New Zealand-based NGO dedicated to making quality medicines and medical technologies available to the poorest of the poor in developing countries.