Monthly Newsletters

The Mission of Public Invention is to “Invent in the public, for the public."

Glia builds tourniquets for Ukraine and Public Invention Helps

Invention is not exactly the same as engineering, but both require problem solving and innovation. Public Invention is proud to assist Glia, a Canadian firm, in its “Stop the Bleed” project making an open-source tourniquet for the terrible conflict in Ukraine. Not being a first responder, I only recently learned how important these devices are, …

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Why we started and then froze a software effort for Ukraine

Disaster relief is different than the steady work of research, whether the disaster is natural or caused by human folly and greed. It is bursty and uncertain, urgent and unclear. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I thought the war would be over before Public Invention could possibly do anything. I was traveling to Auburn Alabama, in …

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Fraunhofer Institute & Public Invention

Recently, Public Invention President Robert L. Read and other volunteers assisted a project with students from Fraunhofer Institute. The Institute released a press release summarized here: In April, COVID-19 began straining healthcare systems as we saw supply-chain breakdowns leading to ventilator shortages. To help mitigate this, individuals, communities, companies, and research institutions began to design …

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Our progress and plans: An open letter about the VentMon to donors and grantors

— Robert L. Read In June and July, Public Invention applied for and received two $20,000 grants, one from the Mozilla Open Source Software (MOSS) Foundation, and one from Protocol labs, specifically to develop, make, and give away free-of-charge, the “VentMon” tester for invasive and non-invasive ventilators. The MOSS foundation grant had stronger legal language …

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Videos from Vent-Con 2020 Available Now!

The videos from Vent-Con 2020 are available now! On May 21st, Public Invention co-hosted Vent-Con 2020–an Open Source Ventilator Conference–along with Helpful Engineering, Make.co, and Ventilators Collaboration Network. The mini-conference/webinar reviewed the impressive progress, discussed the uncertain present, and forged a path forward into the future for makers, philanthropists, investors, government officials, medical professionals, and …

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The Fuller Scale: A Unit of Humanitarian Invention Impact

Science is about truth; engineering is about compromise. At Public Invention, we do both, but perhaps more engineering than science. Our goal is to have a large positive impact on many people; but time and money are always in short supply.  How, then, to compromise on which projects to prioritize? In order to be able …

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