News and Information
Using Sunlight to Save Lives: Watch the Malawi Project Video
October 05, 2016
Graduate students from the School of Engineering designed and built three portable solar-powered systems for a hospital in a rural part of the southeastern African country of Malawi under the direction of Dr. Heidi Jiao. In August 2016, students and staff delivered the devices to the Embangweni Mission Hospital. Designs of the devices are available through solaRescue, an open-source repository for devices that power medical equipment with solar energy in the developing world.
“The power outages effects our patients here at Embangweni very much because our operations depend on energy” Dr. Ishmael Nyirenda of the Embangweni Mission Hospital stated, “and this is in line with options that we do...we depend on the power. So if there is no power, it means our operations are on stand-still, and that can lead to loss of lives.”
Click here to watch the video on YouTube.