Our Crowdfunding Groups
What is Texas Engineering World Health?
We are an organization at The University of Texas at Austin that creates innovative medical technology for developing world countries. Each year, we build a medical device prototype from scratch and submit it to the Engineering World Health competition. The main goal of the competition is to provide a cost-effective medical device with real-life applications in developing countries. The primary cause for hospitals in the developing world to not be able to provide effective care is the lack of cost-effect equipment. Texas Engineering World Health aims to tackle this social issue by building a new medical device each year for the developing world.
Our past projects include a portable neonatal incubator to treat jaundice with bili-lights, sensor glasses to aid the blind, and a low-cost patient monitor that acts as an electrocardiogram and pulse oximeter. In fact, in 2015 Texas Engineering World Health won 1st place in the national Engineering World Health Competition and 3rd place in the NIH DEBUT challenge with our low-cost patient monitor.
Our Project This Year
This year, we have chosen to build a portable and low-cost vitals monitor geared towards children in the developing world. This device will monitor the child’s temperature, blood pressure, blood oxygen concentration, pulse, and heart behavior through an electrocardiogram. Because smartphones are becoming more commonplace and affordable, even in developing countries, the data will be displayed and stored on a smartphone app via Bluetooth.
The Impact of an Infant Patient Monitor
Many developing countries around the world lack the precise measuring devices necessary to measure something as basic as heart rate and blood pressure. Even after the obtainment of this health data, the systems to record and store these medical records are lacking. Our device will solve both issues. It provides critical life-saving information on a child’s vitals, as well as a way to send this data to a smartphone app where it can be easily stored and organized. With your help, we will be able to improve the lives of humans across the globe.
How You Can Help Us
Your donations are vital to our success as an organization. At the core of our mission lies the prototype. We will need to purchase a wide array of circuit boards, sensors, microcontrollers, jumper wires, and other electronic components to build our child vitals monitor. We will also need financial support to create different prototype designs to improve the robustness and reliability of the device. In addition, the Engineering World Health competition requires a large entry fee for our prototype submission, in return for professional feedback on how to further improve our device. Finally, we have other costs associated with running our organization, such as providing food at meetings and social events, while keeping student membership dues low to allow financially-challenged students to contribute. Your donation will be used to help cover all of these costs. We are immensely grateful for your generosity! Your donations will enable us to truly make a global impact. For more information and to view our past projects, please visit www.texasewh.org
You will help pay for hardware components such as an Arduino microcontroller. You will receive a special thank-you email!
You will help pay for a team meeting where we design and prototype our devices. You will receive a shoutout on social media!
You will help pay for food for our general meetings. You will receive our weekly newsletter highlighting our progress!
You will help pay for TEWH’s annual national chapter membership fee. We will place your name on our website as a donor!
You will help pay for TEWH’s competition fee. In addition to your name being on our website as a donor, your name will be on our t-shirt next year!
You will pay for all costs associated with a single prototype design. Your name will not only be on our website and t-shirt but also on our prototype!
