The number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Lebanon reached 248, as of the time of writing, with 8 of them clinically recovered.
Health workers have been carrying the full burden of this fight against the virus, and also the health ministry, and now the Lebanese military forces have joined in.
The fact is, many citizens can help in this fight with their skills like the engineer graduates who took it upon themselves to create respiratory devices from local materials.
Similarly now, two master students in mechanical engineering at the Lebanese International University have teamed up to create disinfection robots.
Abd Ali Atwi from Harouf and Ali Hassan from Arbaslim are designing these robots that hold 25 liters of disinfectant and can be remotely controlled at a 1 km range, and spray as far as 2 to 3 meters.
This means that larger areas could be disinfected using these robots and without risk on the people using them. Inspired by pesticide spraying robots, these young engineers have invented theirs to help limit the spread of the virus, as they told Bint Jbeil.
However, in order for both these projects – the respiratory devices and the robots – to reach final accomplishments with enough prototypes to be put to use, the engineers are waiting for funding.
In a similar move, Berytech is offering its labs and $10K to any startup with a feasible idea about how to fight the coronavirus.
To help with the development of the project or present new ideas to the team that can help in fighting the virus contact numbers for the engineers are as follows.
Abd Ali Atwi: 71 885394 and Ali Hassan: 71 969576