On September 6, we were awarded United States Patent No. 9,433,524 for our Portable Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. This was an important milestone for the Tikü®. We are working on re-design and fabrication for testing and hopefully, FDA pre-marketing clearance. This will enable us to continue with serial production of several of the incubators for field testing in Sub-Saharan Africa. We do not have a timetable for the execution of these events but we are moving towards our goal.
In our last blog, we mentioned that Designs for the World is teaching digital technologies to students in Saint Petersburg and in Tampa. Together with our collaborative partner, Outlaw Solutions and Concepts, we instruct a class called Introduction to 3D Digital Fabrication Tools in two local technical colleges. We teach 3D digital design with surface-modeling and parametric CAD software, as well as additive and subtractive prototyping. Our course has been well-received. We taught four classes in 2016 but were initially scheduled for half that number. We shall be expanding our instruction to others in 2017.
We assembled the 3D printers for our classes ourselves. We were not duly impressed by the market offerings, so we decided to design and build our own 3D printer. We just successfully tested our second working prototype and shall commence limited production during 2017. Previously, this industry has focused on hobbyists and clubs. We have designed our open-source machine for use in schools. This works well with our business strategy for launching Makerspaces in local institutions. We want to provide tools to kids for innovation in both STEM and fine arts curricula.
In addition to our own pursuits, we continue to help inventors in developing and prototyping their creations. We have been working with a range of products in diverse industries. Our journey has been interesting and the future looks promising.
