Highlights – Summer 2025
Summer 2025 was full of major milestones and progress toward our mission of alleviating global poverty and transforming communities across the globe. As the season comes to a close, we want to share with you a few highlights from the past few months made possible by our generous supporters.
An order of Afridev MaxLife™ Centralizers were molded recently by our U.K. supplier and are now being shipped to Malawi. This component is making a huge breakthrough in Afridev hand pump reliability by replacing a rubber centralizer that deteriorates quickly and causes sudden pump failure. The MaxLife Centralizer has been field tested for more than a year and has proven to last significantly longer than the standard rubber centralizer, promoting reliable water access and long-term community development. The team also developed a MaxLife test stand, which is critical for perfecting our MaxLife Program and proving its efficacy. All these efforts are essential preparations for expanding access to MaxLife Centralizers across Malawi and beyond.
In addition to the Afridev MaxLife Centralizer, the DO team has been working on MaxLife upgrades for the India Mark 2, another standard hand pump commonly used across the globe. Forty upgraded India Mark 2 pumps are now being shipped to Zambia as part of our India Mark 2 MaxLife Program. DO is partnering with Living Water International and the Zambian government to complete a 2-year demonstration of these upgraded pumps, which are designed to reduce corrosion, prevent lead contamination, and decrease the number of catastrophic pump breakdowns that perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
This summer, our Engineering Solutions team overcame challenges to keep our KupolaCareTM Wound Therapy device on track to begin clinical evaluations next month. Our team’s creativity and resilience allowed them to quickly pivot and refine the design, which they tested and proved to be the perfect solution to the challenges at hand. Their ingenuity and determination allowed them to perfect the design all while sticking to the original timeline for clinical evaluations. In preparation for the upcoming evaluations in Malawi, the team just assembled 2 working units which will be used on patients at Malamulo Hospital over the next 9 months. Feedback from patients and medical staff during these evaluations will be critical in finalizing the device design and moving toward FDA clearance. KupolaCare Wound Therapy, once complete, will provide a more affordable and reliable way to provide hope and healing to patients with chronic wounds.
We wrapped up another successful Internship Program, with four talented and dedicated interns working on projects ranging from KupolaCare design and testing, to MaxLife developments. The program plays a significant role in our Engineering Solutions department, and we are grateful for all the contributions our interns made this summer. Here’s what Intern Sydney Cooper had to say about her experience: “My internship at Design Outreach gave me the opportunity to work on engineering solutions with a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives. I gained hands-on experience in usability testing, prototyping, and performance validation, all while keeping real-world challenges in mind—like cost, durability, and ease of use in under-resourced settings. What made the experience truly unique was DO’s faith-based mission. Every project was grounded in the belief that engineering can be a tool to serve others and glorify God, and that perspective gave my work a deeper sense of purpose. It showed me how technical skill, compassion, and faith can work together to address global needs.”
