The support that we have received from people all over South Africa, and indeed many people from other places in the world, has just been incredible. We have had manufacturers rolling up their sleeves and getting night shifts involved to manufacture parts for our prototype and then refusing to charge us simply because they want to make a contribution. I personally have learnt so much in the last two weeks from people willing to give of their time and advice and so many have freely contributed to our development.
We have been humbled at how captains of industry, CEO’s of multinationals, high ranking government officials and ordinary men and women have stepped into the breach to assist us in our endeavors – there are too many to mention and if I did I would be sure to leave someone out which would be extremely embarrassing. I would also like to congratulate and wish all those companies that are also trying to develop ventilators the very best in finalizing their developments because South Africa will need as many people in this space as we can possibly find – I have had the opportunity to talk to a few of them in the past week, and once again, I am struck by their desire to come together as a nation to serve the common good. If there is one good thing that I see coming out of this crisis, it is that maybe we will come out the other side being just a bit closer to each other. Finally I have to thank my business partner, Iain Ambler, our CEO, Mr Carl-Johan van Eeden, our team at Clifford and our development partners, Dr Don Miller and Richard Sobey as well as Scott Liebenberg in our US Office – they have all been monumental and worked staggering hours to get us to this point.
For us this represents a major milestone and at least we now have an operational prototype. Of course there are still some small issues that need to be ironed out as a result of us running the bench test, but in general we are extremely proud of our unit. The next step in the evolution is to hand it over to medical clinicians to do some proper medical testing. Of course we want to resolve all the niggling issues first, so right now our timeline for the handover to the medical experts is not yet finalized but is imminent. We remain confident that we can have a medically and commercially viable solution early in May.
Best Wishes
Graham Raynor
Co-Owner Clifford Machines & Technology
