Mboalab is an open and collaborative space located in the village of Mefou-Assi, Yaounde, Cameroon. The aim of Mboalab is to catalyse sustainable development and improve people's living conditions through open science. We bring together researchers, scholars, educationists, policy makers and the general public to discuss, conceive and implement projects responding to the health, economic and social needs of the community, such as the coronavirus pandemic. Our approach focuses on the integration of local knowledge by centering the local community especially women.
The aim of Mboalab is to catalyse sustainable local development and improve people’s living conditions through open science.
To this end, the main missions of Mboalab are as follows:
- provide community and lifelong education for the population, as well as formal education for the younger generations.
- serve as a platform for exchanges on issues related to local context; mediate between local communities and academia.
- propose solutions that meet the needs of communities, using local knowledge and open digital technologies.
- raise public awareness of environmental issues.
- facilitate access to basic health care.
- You can take a tour of our lab here.
The high cost of modern stethoscopes remains a significant barrier to physicians and allied health professionals practicing in low- and middle-income countries, where few affordable high-quality options exist. Stethoscopes in general are hard to sterilize resulting in a use model where cheap stethoscopes are acquired by the hospital/clinic and one is assigned to each patient, with every professional who works with that patient using the same stethoscope. This can result in crosscontamination as someone touches many stethoscopes. Cheap stethoscopes also wear out quickly and have short hoses, resulting in professionals getting physically closer to the patient than necessary, particularly if they have to put their arm around the patient and listen to positions on the back.
The objective is to be able to limit the prolonged contact of the nursing staff with the patient and to have a device which can be placed by the patient but interpreted by the practitioner.
3D technologies have recently proven their efficiency and speed in the medical sector, allowing many projects to see the light of day during the COVID-19 crisis. Faced with the shortage of certain medical equipment and devices, makers, manufacturers, services and players in the 3D printing sector have mobilized to 3D print respirators, protective visors, swabs and connected devices to facilitate medical teleconsultations.In line with this new paradigm, we propose to designan open-source wireless 3D printed Digital Stethoscope.
- Open source
- Engineer software & hardware
- Project documentation
- Open research
- Diy
- Biochemistry
- Project management
In line with Outreachy’s guideline, the focus of our project is to prioritise the learning process and applicants' self-development over skill acquisition. Both applicants with or without previous experience in open-source contributions and complete beginners are welcome to participate and contribute.
Our main objective is to provide applicants with notions on open-source contributions and spirit, as well as with basics and advanced skills needed to complete the project;
Applicants can contribute to this project through the project repository on GitHub. Check the Contributions Guidelines and the list of details via Technical Documentation
Each project’s Starter Task is supervised by a specific mentor. Applicants desiring to contribute to a specific task should get in touch with the assigned mentor. Information about the assigned mentor can be found in the task’s descriptions.
Information about Mboalab community Mentors can be found Here.