Biomedical Engineering Project Based Learning: Euro-African Design School Focused on Medical Devices

Biomedical engineering (BME) has the potential of transforming medical care towards universal healthcare by means of the democratization of medical technology. To this end, innovative holistic approaches and multidisciplinary teams, built upon the gathering of international talent, should be encouraged within the medical industry. However, these transformations can only be accomplished if BME education also continuously evolves and focuses on the internationalization of students, the promotion of collaborative design strategies and the orientation towards context relevant medical needs. In this study we describe an international teaching-learning experience, the "UBORA (Swahili for 'excellence') Design School". During an intensive week of training and collaboration 39 engineering students lived through the complete development process for creating innovative open-source medical devices following the CDIO ("conceivedesign-implement-operate") approach and using the UBORA e-infrastructure as a co-design platform. Our post-school survey and analyses showed that this integral teaching-learning experience helped to promote professional skills and could nurture the future generation of biomedical engineers, who could transform healthcare technology through collaborative design oriented to open source medical devices.