In a bid to deal with the country’s shortage of ventilators, Pakistan’s government has brought together all related public and private companies along with technology company firms and asked to showcase ventilator designs and models.
Multiple companies have sent their designs and ventilators, which will be sent to a government-formed committee for approval; which will test this within the requirements, and then the preparatory work starts.
A Pakistani startup on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Poulta, created a smart portable ventilator that was sent to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC). Poulta’s founder and CEO, Ali Murtaza Solangi, said while talking to the media that while they’re not a ventilator company and are working to develop the poultry farming industry, they’ve developed a smart, portable ventilator that can be centrally monitored.
He said they had to train people in conventional ventilators to run them that was exhausting on scarce resources, but this way the smart ventilator can be controlled remotely and centrally through the internet.
He said that overseas ventilators can cost $10,000-$12,000, but the one they’ve built cones of the same quality but cost $2200. He said they had sent the ventilator design and model to PEC and NDMA, if approved they would be able to make 500 to 1000 ventilators in just five weeks.
