Student Devises Solar Energy ECG Useful In Developing Countries And Troubled Areas

Felix Adamczyk spawned the idea of building a solar EKG two years ago. At the time, he was concentrating intensively on Africa and had already built various technical devices. This prompted him to construct an EKG machine that can also be deployed successfully in developing countries. The requirements for such an EKG unit are conceivably simple, as Felix Adamczyk was soon to discover when he consulted a company in Tanzania that specializes in medical technology: “It should be robust, affordable and energy-efficient”, he explains. It does not make any sense to buy medical equipment from industrial nations and send them to developing countries. “You have to adapt the apparatus to suit the local conditions”, Adamczyk stresses.

Experience gathered in Africa

In the summer of 2007, he traveled to Tanzania to do an internship in a hospital. This enabled him to experience the state of the medical technology there at first hand. The biggest eye-opener for him was the fact that you cannot really count on the electricity supply, fittings and spare parts for conventional EKG machines are hard to come by. Moreover, the machine should be easy enough to handle that even an untrained hand can use it quickly and without needing to carry out any complicated maneuvers. Freshly equipped with his new-found knowledge, Adamczyk set about developing “Kadiri” upon his return to Europe.

The power is generated by solar cells fitted on the appliance. Whereas conventional EKG machines have disposable stick-on electrodes, Adamczyk used reusable clamp electrodes for “Kadiri”, thus prolonging the machine’s operational lifespan. Furthermore, the customary performance battery was replaced by a lead-acid battery as the latter can be procured more cheaply and easily. Adamczyk’s sojourn in Tanzania also showed him that conventional paper would gradually become brittle due to the prevalent heat there. Consequently, he used normal till paper from the supermarket and printed the millimeter grid directly onto it.

Outlook

Felix Adamczyk’s solar EKG came fifth in the German Youth Competition in Research held in May 2008, a success which was also due in no small part to the financial support he received from ETH Zurich. The 21-year-old is currently in his second semester at the Institute for Information Technology and Electrotechnology, where he gained a lot of useful knowledge for the development of “Kadiri”.

As far as launching “Kadiri” on the market is concerned, however, Adamczyk thinks it is still early days. “The risk is simply too big for small and medium-sized companies to accept the solar EKG as a product”, he admits. Founding his own company would also be fraught with risks he would rather not take for the time being. His main priority for now is his degree at ETH Zurich; he will be finishing the preliminary exams this summer. After the examination stress is over, however, he intends to devote himself more intensively to marketing “Kadiri”.