After that call, we started building a ventilator. There wasn’t time for hesitation. We jumped straight into concepts. Should it be mechanical, turbine-based, use a compressor, or maybe an Ambu bag? We had to consider everything. But most importantly, it had to be safe. We ran the first tests in March 2020.
Fast prototyping was only possible thanks to iotaap, which let us test hardware and software almost in real time. Meanwhile, I started studying pulmology. I had to understand pressure curves, respiratory rates, tidal volume, and peak expiratory flow. Things I had never imagined learning. But we weren’t just building code anymore. We were building something that could breathe for someone.
I started managing a team in the UAE and another back in Croatia. We were prototyping like crazy, sketching hardware, testing electronics, and simulating breathing patterns, all before we even had the final design locked. Since the device needed to be fully connected and remotely controllable, we also had to meet medical and technical standards we had never worked with before.
The idea was ambitious. An affordable ventilator that would: collect real-time patient data, support remote monitoring, be compatible with existing hospital systems, and actually do the one job it had to do - ventilate safely and reliably.
This was my most complex project ever.
