Living under blockade for 13 years has forced Palestinians in Gaza to be creative, particularly those with a training in engineering. Female entrepreneur Majd Masharawi has pioneered bricks made from coal and wood ash to reconstruct demolished buildings through her company Green Cake; her latest innovation, Sunbox produces solar electricity around the Gaza strip; and the tech ecosystem development initiative Gaza Sky Geeks provides remote work opportunities online for youth locked into the 365 square km of land. Now, engineers have been forced to confront the COVID-19 pandemic with the same ingenuity, building ventilators from scratch.
While this kind of innovation is outstanding, it is produced under coercion. The Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza has included restricting and withholding the import of vital, life-saving medical equipment and supplies. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, there are just 65 ventilators in the Gaza strip for a population of close to 2 million people. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a contagious respiratory disease, this is a horrifying shortage and one that is a result of deliberate Israeli policy.
Farouq Sharaf, an electrical engineer at the Islamic University in Gaza is trying to find a temporary solution to this shortage. Alongside a team of academics at IUG, he has developed a low-budget ventilator that can be locally produced in Gaza. “I came up with this idea with a colleague teaching on our Disaster and Crisis Management programme at IUG, who has worked on the multiple conflict emergencies we have experienced here in Gaza. He asked if a small-scale ventilator, similar to one used in ambulances, could be developed quickly and at a low cost – so I gave it a try”.
PrintCaitlin Procter | Radio Free (2020-04-16T11:46:31+00:00) Coerced innovation: Gaza makes its own tools to fight against COVID-19. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/04/16/coerced-innovation-gaza-makes-its-own-tools-to-fight-against-covid-19/
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