Careables Exhibition at Nepal Communitere!

Nepal Communitere, in partnership with Field Ready, Careables and the FabLab Nepal team has been hosting the FIRST ever month-long Careables Exhibition in Nepal at our Pulchowk hub since the last week of November. The exhibition is the Nepali adaptation of the offline version of the Careables exhibition, that aims to tell the story of Careables. Careables are tailor-made open solutions and products designed to tackle permanent or temporary disabilities. It is an open and inclusive approach to offer healthcare solutions based on digital fabrication and collaborative making. Careables.org is the platform where care receivers, health care professionals and makers join forces to co-create Careables products. At Nepal Communitere, we launched the exhibition officially on 20th November, 2020 with the aim to showcase and celebrate healthcare innovations happening in Nepal and around the world through the use of digital fabrication. 

Checkout the official Careables Platform at their website Careables.org

The Careables platform has helped Nepal connect to a global network of makers from Iraq, Ghana, Singapore, Brazil and Germany, demonstrating the value of open-source platforms to design meaningful products. This is part of our vision as we launch the new FabLab Nepal here at Nepal Communitere in early January 2021! With the launch, our hub will be upscaled to a furnished digital fabrication laboratory, bringing a wide scope of unlimited possibilities to solving some of Nepal’s production problems! The Careables exhibition highlights how digital design and fabrication can produce valuable health-related products and support different communities in Nepal’s health sector. 

In February, we visited the Hospital and Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Children (HRDC) in Dhulikhel to introduce some Careables digitally fabricated health assistive devices and now our tech lead, Pallab Shrestha is helping HRDC with designing and 3D printing prosthetics for below-the-knee amputee patients with guidance from healthcare professionals. We couldn’t have received a better opportunity than Careables to showcase these products and innovation through an exhibition like this! Immense gratitude to  the invaluable  Careables.org network for allowing us to hold the Careables Exhibition in Nepal and The European Union for supporting this initiative. 

We along with Field Ready and the FabLab Nepal team are showcasing a collection of some cool hardware designs, co-design and some “Careables” products designed locally here in Nepal. During the lockdown itself, we started this initiative where Pallab designed some in-house safety protective equipment such as Hands-free handles, ear savers, and the Hands-Free Wall-Mounted Hand Sanitizer Dispenser, using our 3D printers which we are presenting in the exhibition. We are also showcasing different assistive tech health products that were designed during the Humanitarian Design Challenge, a design sprint program supported by Careables.org where we had a group of four teams of young Nepali engineers designing different kinds of assistive devices and prosthetics for patients. 

The exhibition will be ongoing and open till December 20, 2020 so drop by! Being mindful of the current COVID-19 risk, we are using a large, open and ventilated space to showcase the exhibit, limiting occupancy to just 4 people at a time. Visitors will be required to use masks, sanitizer and other personal protective equipment to attend the exhibition and will have to follow the COVID-19 safety guidelines. The exhibit will also feature some of Careables’ partners and their work from around the world, including projects in Ghana, Brazil, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. So please drop by anytime between 12pm – 4pm from Monday to Friday at Nepal Communitere and check out all the innovative products  that can be unleashed through digital fabrication!

Careables exhibition

Interested in learning Digital Fabrication Skills? We are organizing our first series of ‘FabLab workshops’ starting December 1st 2020! These pilot workshops during the month of December will focus on basic Computer Assistive Design (CAD) and train participants on using cool digital fabrication equipment! Register now for upcoming workshops!

Read Creativity in time of crisis- Digital manufacturing solutions as a response to COVID-19 to know more about how Pallab Shrestha, Project Lead at FabLab Nepal, has been designing and testing various healthcare and protective equipment: a creative response to COVID-19!