Design That Matters: accelerating development and saving lives with SolidWorks

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Back in 2009, former SolidWorks CEO Jeff Ray wrote about Design That Matters, a local non-profit organization that leverages volunteer engineers and designers to come up with life-saving products for use in the developing world. SolidWorks has been a long-time supporter of Design That Matters, and the group even appeared on stage at SolidWorks World 2009, showing off an infant incubator designed using car parts.

Design That Matters Incubator SolidWorks

Design That Matters was kind enough to work with the SolidWorks team to develop a case study that explains how our tools and solutions allow them to go from idea to finished product faster and lower the cost of the finished products–two things that are crucial when it comes to saving lives. Designer Will Harris, IDSA, talked about how the incubator and a phototherapy treatment device will help save some of the estimated four million babies that die in the developing world each year due to a lack of basic medical equipment. According to Will, “developing a cool product is great, but creating products that save the lives of babies in third-world countries is absolutely awesome."

Design That Matters Phototherapy Device

Design That Matters uses SolidWorks Premium design and analysis software for structural design, and 3DVIA Composer technical communications software to communicate with physicians in the third world. To learn more about how SolidWorks software helps this important organization support medical treatments that save lives, visit the SolidWorks website and read the case study.

Matthew West

SolidWorks alumnus. I like plate reverb, Rat pedals, Thai curry, New Weird fiction, my kids, Vespas, Jazzmasters, my wife & Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not necessarily in that order.