Rwandans Unveil Protoype Incubator

Thursday, March 5, 2009

by Gale Wiley

Kigali, Rwanda -- It was big day for Rwandan carpenters who built a low-cost, wooden incubator following design specs of Rice MBAs who traveled here as part of a technology commercialization class to bring simple, low-cost, bio-med products to developing countries.

Rice MBAs are using their business acumen to develop third world markets, pricing, and distribution channels for products designed by Rice bio engineers.

Rice University Bioengineering Professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum accompanied the incubator team to a furniture co-op where Rwandan workers unveiled their incubator prototype.

Richards-Kortum and Marc Epstein, a professor with the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, teamed up to give Rice MBAs the chance to promote bio-technology products to Rwanda.

The Rwandans used no electric tools to make the incubator.

Although the incubator is made of wood, it will serve as a demonstration model that students can show to clinics in rural Rwanda.

"This is a low-cost incubator made by Rwandans for Rwandans,," said Rice MBA incubator team member Jess Arnold. "This model is a start. We can always modify the incubator down the line. We wanted to create a product that Rwandans could build themselves."

The incubator team estimates that there is a market for as many as 900 incubators in rural Rwandan clinics.

The Rice MBAs paid the carpenters by collecting $500 in donations during a Super Bowl party.

Backpack team scores

The backpack team met with Access Project, an NGO that could not hide its enthusiasm for the product.

The backpack, called a "lab in a backpack" by Rice students, holds medical diagnostic equipment. Using Rice undergraduates, Richards-Kortum has sent 12 backpacks for testing in third world countries.

Access Project, with the assistance of the Rice MBAs, immediately began work on a proposal to raise funds to purchase 80 backpacks.

The NGO requested that Rice team visit Bugasera, another rural hospital, Thursday to demonstrate the backpack to NGO colleagues.

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