Everyone on our planet deserves good medical care.

But for many people in developing countries -- and even for many in the US -- that medical care is unaffordable. This should not be.

We are a team of engineers and doctors who want to make better medical care available to more people.  We're developing an inexpensive and open-source medical ventilator, designed to be to be used by poorer countries and to be stockpiled for emergency use in developed countries. Our target selling price is US$5,000, approximately one-fifth the price of current commercial ventilators.

BostonVent is a sophisticated full-featured ventilator that can be used for all phases of respiratory illness, and will be submitted to the FDA for 510(k) clearance. By contrast, most other ventilator efforts spurred by the COVID pandemic are relatively simple mechanized "valve bag mask" squeezers that are only useful for initial resuscitation, and then only with substantial limitations.

Our team includes highly-experienced engineers and anesthesiologists. Two of our engineers have more than 35 years of combined experience in leading the development of FDA-regulated medical devices, with a 100% track record of obtaining FDA clearance.

The BostonVent project consists of two phases:

1. Creating a full featured proof-of-concept prototype that can be validated in hospital respiratory labs.

2. Productizing our prototype so it is ready for both FDA submission and the start of manufacturing.

All software and hardware designs are, and will be, open sourced via the GPL and CERN Open Hardware License. We are currently in the process of setting up a not-for-profit corporation (i.e. a 501(c)(3) entity) that will hold this intellectual property. In order to help offset our costs, the documentation required for FDA clearance will remain proprietary, but will be licensed at little or no cost to charitable entities who want to manufacture these devices.

We are currently looking to grow our group of volunteers; our greatest needs right now are around fundraising (donations/grants) and social media. However, we're always interested in technologists who can contribute to our mechanical, software, and electronics efforts - please let us know about your interests and skills.

Our hope is that a hospital-quality open-source medical device design will begin the democratization of medical devices, leading to greater availability via lower cost, as well as greater innovation and safety. And we look forward to the help of like-minded individuals to make or world a better, fairer place.