Devesh Ranjan.

A Telugu researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta has played a pivotal role in the creation of a makeshift ventilator that can be mass-produced anywhere across the world. The project was completed in less than a month in view of the rising need for ventilators during the current pandemic under leadership of Gokul Pathikonda, who is from Chittoor.

The study centres of the open university have a very big role in helping the university achieve the goal of reaching those who cannot be reached otherwise, said Prof AK Bakhshi, Vice-Chancellor, Uttar Pradesh Rajarshi Tandon Open University (UPRTOU), Allahabad.

Prompted by the lack of adequate ventilators during the coronavirus pandemic, Devesh Ranjan, a professor and associate chair in the prestigious Georgia Tech's George W Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and his wife Kumuda Ranjan, a practising family physician in Atlanta, developed the emergency ventilator from concept to prototype in just about three weeks-time.