A team composed of biomedical engineering students at Georgia Tech placed first in the 2011 International E‐Waste Design Competition Reuse Category. The competition featured 29 teams with 11 others in the Reuse category. The team received a $5000 prize.
Tech's device, named CardioReach, involved an electrocardiograph created from e-waste. Their plan is to acquire smart phones through donation programs re-purpose them into CardioReach. Electronics from the cell phone will be used for processing and transmission, while additional parts will be used for signal input and isolation. Similar devices are popular in Brazil, Russia, China and India, but they hope by utilizing e-waste, their device can be less expensive but still competitive. Currently, CardioReach is in the early stages of development but a functioning prototype is expected as early as August 2011.
