Biomedical engineering education in resource-limited settings: Creating an innovation eco-system

Key among public health challenges in the developing world is the lack of innovative capacity to develop, optimize and maintain reliable healthcare technologies and solutions. While some effort has been made to train a technical workforce in maintaining hospital equipment, little is being done to create an innovative capacity that is able to come up with unique, accessible and locally developed solutions aimed at addressing the highest value healthcare challenges. This paper summarizes our recent efforts in developing a broader understanding of the need for biomedical engineering education and practice, as well as our approaches to develop system level and transformative solutions. We examine the scope, vision as well as short term and long-term challenges and solutions needed to create innovation ecosystems within the developing world in general, and Africa in particular.