Medical student's device named finalist in competition
A Stanford MD/PhD student's innovative idea to use a paper tube device to help deliver medicine to asthmatic children in rural Mexico has been selected to compete for a $5,000 prize from a nonprofit group.
Judges from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Google.org and others joined a nonprofit, Changemakers Collaborative Competition, to select Eric Green's design as one of 10 finalists out of 300 entries from 27 countries.
Changemakers, a project of the nonprofit group Ashoka, is building a global online "open source" community to identify social solutions to pressing world issues. The competition is Changemakers' 11th, and the second sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Green's paper device replaces a plastic and metal cylinder, known as a spacer, used with asthma inhalers to capture medication. Without it, gasping children have difficulty inhaling medication, but some cannot afford its $50 cost. Green's flat-sheet paper version can be folded into a tube and costs only 25 cents.
All 10 finalists will be honored at a global change summit in the fall. The public can vote on which three finalists deserve $5,000 at www.changemakers.net until Aug 29.
