The Rice 360° Institute for Global Health Technologies seeks to design and implement technologies that improve health and reduce poverty. Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB), Rice 360°’s undergraduate program, challenges students to solve global health problems through real-world engineering design. By pairing students with faculty, clinicians, and mentors in the developing world, BTB teams had designed an impressive portfolio of effective, low-cost medical technologies. However, given the temporary nature of the student teams, as well as the intensive focus and specialized expertise needed to take an invention out of the lab and into the market, the program had realized less consistent results in commercializing these solutions. BTB needed a mechanism to help get more of its emerging technologies into the hands of their intended users.
In an effort to extend the resources, competencies, and support that BTB could apply to its projects, the program leaders began seeking an experienced partner to drive the commercialization of some of its solutions. This mini-case study tells the story of how BTB began working with 3rd Stone Design, a product design, strategy, and development consultancy, to accelerate progress on the DoseRight Syringe Clip project. The DoseRight product was developed to address the need for accurate pediatric dosing of liquid ARV medications in countries with widespread HIV/AIDs.
This story is part of the Global Health Innovation Insight Series developed at Stanford University to shed light on the challenges that global health innovators face as they seek to develop and implement new products and services that address needs in resource-constrained settings.
Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Robert Miros of 3rd Stone Design for his participation. This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health grant 1 RC4 TW008781-01.