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As the Coronavirus continues to sweep across countries around the world, a group of innovators known as the PillarTribe led by Maher Daoudi came up with the Oxikit, an open-source Oxygen concentrator anyone can build. The Oxikit provides immediate access of up to 24 liters per minute (LPM) of O2 with 92% concentration. The current target oxygen saturation range recommended for COVID-19 patients is between 92-96%.
TCE , the engineering consultancy division of Tata responded to COVID crisis by evaluating open source ventilator deigns and integrated COVID infrastructure solution with hospital design, Viral load reduction unit, vaccine refrigerator and Oxygen supply. TCE conceptualized an innovative idea and engineered the conversion of existing PSA Nitrogen plants to PSA Oxygen plants. TCE also prototyped an Indigenous portable O2 Concentrator using opensource Oxikit design with 100% Indian components. All components with Indian suppliers list is made available to Indian MSMEs.
Technido is a robotic startup that has taken this design, further simplified it and offer it in India under Marut brand name.
There are many designs developed by Indian research organisations and offered as open source, free of charge technology but engineering upto component level as per Indian supply is a missing link. In this case TCE bridged the gap.
Read: ET article
Thiago H. K. Uehara is a researcher at Chatham House. He was previously adviser to the Office of the President of Brazil and consultant to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on sustainable livelihoods. Thiago has advised organizations on sustainable production and consumption, and created the first course in sustainability at Brazil’s National School of Public Administration and the first sustainable logistics plan of Brazil’s central administration. Thiago is author of Sustainable Procurement and Poder Público e Consumo de Madeira, with Luciana Betiol and others. He is currently completing a PhD in political economy and rural development at Imperial College London.
Discussion of sustainable procurement tends to emphasize ‘impact mitigation’ and ‘reduction of negative impacts’ as policy priorities, but these ideas send the wrong message. This paper shifts the narrative away from the pursuit of damage mitigation and towards the promotion of equities for sustainable development. The paper proposes a revised definition of sustainable procurement, so that goods, services, works and utilities are procured in a way that achieves value for money on a life-cycle basis, while addressing equity principles for sustainable development to the benefit of societies and the environment across time and geographies.
Download report: https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/2020-11-19-public-procurement-for-sustainable-development-uehara.pdf
The first steam cooker in India was developed by Indumadhab Mallick in Bengal called Icmic cookers. Soon Bombay had Santosh cookers and Madras Rukmani cooker. But the rise of pressure cookers ended the reign of these traditional all-in-one cookers. In 1935 the Automa pressure cooker was launched . Prestige came up with the Gasket Release System making steam pressure cookers safe.
Electric rice cookers were developed in Japan after World War I, and by the late 1950’s, such cookers were a standard appliance in Japanese homes. Their manufacture and use spread throughout the rest of Asia where rice was the dietary mainstay, and then to the rest of the world where rice-eating continued to grow over the next years of global contact, trade, and culinary exchange.
Chinese scientist, Yong-Guang Wang, filed the first electric pressure cooker patent on January 9th, 1991. This patent is currently owned by the world’s No. 1 electric pressure cooker manufacturer, Midea Group. The origins of the multi-cooker appear to be a hybrid of the slow cooker/crock pot of 1950’s America and the rice cooker of 1950’s Japan. Appliance giant Rival® bought an US patent, redesigned, rebranded and launched their new iteration of the slow cooker and sold 2 million slow cookers. Instant Pot® was developed by Robert Wang.
