Cambridge Festival praised Cambs Compressors and other local businesses for their role in a consortium which developed an oxygen concentrator which functions in tough conditions.

World Health Organisation call for help

Open Ventilator System Initiative (OVSI) was formed in response to the WHO's estimate that fewer than 2,000 working ventilators were in existence across Africa. In fact when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, there were 10 countries in Africa that had no ventilators. OVSI was an initiative which brought together a consortium of academics, engineers, intensive care medics, innovators and industry partners. It evolved from an initial idea proposed at the University of Cambridge in March 2020.

The Brief: To develop a new low cost, robust, oxygen concentrator.

An oxygen concentrator is a type of medical device used for delivering oxygen to individuals with breathing-related disorders. They work by filtering the surrounding air, compressing it to the required density and then delivering purified medical grade oxygen into a pulse-dose delivery system or continuous stream system to the patient. Cambs Compressors worked closely with University of Cambridge Open Ventilator System Initiative team, led by Dr Tashiv Ramsander, and helped develop a high-performance ventilator for manufacture in low and middle-income countries that became the first intensive care quality ventilator to be manufactured in Africa.

Cambridge Festival, Centre for Global Equality and OVSI

The festival tracked the story of how OVSI evolved and explores how the low-cost, high quality ventilator and oxygen concentrator was developed and is now being produced. The event featured presentations from key consortium members in Cambridge, Ethiopia and Kenya, along with an inside look into the labs and workshops where they work. The festival was organised by the Centre for Global Equality in collaboration with the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CEB), University of Cambridge.