Shield our Heroes
Donation protected
A week ago today, my colleagues and I (a group of IDEO designers) received a desperate note from another IDEO colleague whose wife works in a hospital in San Mateo County. He told us his wife's team ran out of masks to treat COVID-19 patients and asked “if it would be possible to create 20-50 DIY medical face shields?”
That weekend, my colleagues and I jumped into our typical IDEO process of designing and prototyping, using materials we could easily find. In one day, using an iterative design & prototyping process, we made as many face shields as we could and got them into the hands of healthcare professionals.
The shields were put into immediate use by doctors and nurses who were heroically putting themselves in harms way by caring for COVID-19 patients. After one day of use we received feedback and went back to the prototyping shop to make refinements on the original design. From there we refined the design and created over one hundred shields which were distributed to various hospitals in the Bay Area for more feedback. That’s when things got serious.
After realizing there was huge demand for these face shields in larger volumes, this became a passion project for the team outside of work hours. We connected with one of our incredible local production partners, Michael Hicks from Andresen , and together, we figured out a way to create thousands of shields per day. One week after the original request, the shields are coming off the production lines at 1000 per day, bagged, sealed, dated and boxed, ready for distribution to local hospitals in the Bay Area.
We already have requests for thousands of shields from several local hospitals so our goal is to be able to ramp up production and meet the immediate need of our local healthcare professionals until larger high-volume producers are able to increase their supply.
My hope in setting up this GoFundMe page is that you might join us to cover the costs to “Shield our Heroes”. Everyday healthcare workers and first responders who are on the front lines, risking their lives, every day.
Thank you for your support!
Andy Deakin, Ethan Klein, Diem Ho, Prat Ganapathy, Jason Wilkins, Kayvon Shakeri (designers at IDEO ) & MIchael Hicks & John Franco (from Andresen ).
That weekend, my colleagues and I jumped into our typical IDEO process of designing and prototyping, using materials we could easily find. In one day, using an iterative design & prototyping process, we made as many face shields as we could and got them into the hands of healthcare professionals.
The shields were put into immediate use by doctors and nurses who were heroically putting themselves in harms way by caring for COVID-19 patients. After one day of use we received feedback and went back to the prototyping shop to make refinements on the original design. From there we refined the design and created over one hundred shields which were distributed to various hospitals in the Bay Area for more feedback. That’s when things got serious.
After realizing there was huge demand for these face shields in larger volumes, this became a passion project for the team outside of work hours. We connected with one of our incredible local production partners, Michael Hicks from Andresen , and together, we figured out a way to create thousands of shields per day. One week after the original request, the shields are coming off the production lines at 1000 per day, bagged, sealed, dated and boxed, ready for distribution to local hospitals in the Bay Area.
We already have requests for thousands of shields from several local hospitals so our goal is to be able to ramp up production and meet the immediate need of our local healthcare professionals until larger high-volume producers are able to increase their supply.
My hope in setting up this GoFundMe page is that you might join us to cover the costs to “Shield our Heroes”. Everyday healthcare workers and first responders who are on the front lines, risking their lives, every day.
Thank you for your support!
Andy Deakin, Ethan Klein, Diem Ho, Prat Ganapathy, Jason Wilkins, Kayvon Shakeri (designers at IDEO ) & MIchael Hicks & John Franco (from Andresen ).
Organizer and beneficiary
Andy Deakin
Organizer
Oakland, CA
Lynda Deakin
Beneficiary
