At the pandemic’s outset in March 2020, a call to action went out to innovators to address a global shortage of ventilators. Abhi Ghavalkar and Zach Mudge answered, creating a prototype with plumbing parts, balloons, and a vacuum cleaner. The FDA responded positively to their proposal and asked them to test it using medical-grade parts in a clinical setting. 

Their device allows up to four patients to safely share a single hospital ventilator. The Prana Medical team — partly based in the UK — grew to include Akash Ghavalkar, Nikhil Pitta, Milana Marsh, and Nikitha Sridhar, and won the Innovation Catalyst Ignite Grant from the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation last year, which led to a prototype that validated some of their concept’s technological elements.

“Prana’s mission revolves around making healthcare affordable, accessible, and equitable,” Abhi says. “We aim to bring down the barriers for resource-constrained communities to participate, and even thrive, in the world that we live in. The impact we’d like to have on future generations is that we need to be mindful about who is being excluded from the products and services being designed today, and that it is possible to make low-cost solutions for the communities that need it most without compromising quality, safety, or user experience.”

In the CoLab, the team is eager to interact with other teams working on hardware products or medical devices, especially those working with emerging economies, in addition to knowledge-sharing and expanding its networks with founders from a variety of backgrounds.