UCI Beall Applied Innovation has been awarded the Greater Irvine Chamber Resilience Partnership Hero Award presented by the Greater Irvine Chamber for leading a UC Irvine-wide effort to produce over 20,000 single-use face shields for UCI healthcare workers during the initial phases of the COVID-19 crisis. The award recognizes companies, organizations and individuals that have made a positive impact on the greater Irvine community in response to the pandemic.
“UCI Beall Applied Innovation is honored to receive this award,” said Richard Sudek, UCI chief innovation officer and executive director at UCI Beall Applied Innovation. “We pride ourselves on being an integrated community member and a collaborative partner, never more so than we go beyond just building the ecosystem but bring together campus, Orange County businesses and industry partners to ultimately help healthcare workers during an important time of need.”
The awards ceremony, which was held online, recognized and celebrated many individuals, companies and nonprofit organizations based in Irvine for their contributions to the community during the COVID-19 crisis.
“The generosity and compassion displayed in our community over the past several months is a testament to the resilience of Greater Irvine,” said Bryan Starr, president and CEO of Greater Irvine Chamber, during the ceremony. “Members of our community have come together in the most extraordinary ways to form strength in partnerships to ensure our communities are stronger than ever as we overcome this crisis.”
Applied Innovation partnered with the UCI Claire Trevor School of the Arts (CTSA), UCI Health, UCI School of Medicine, the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and the Orange County business community to complete the face shield project.
Applied Innovation also worked with industry partners from in and around Irvine, including NXT Biomedical, Dinsmore Inc., Oakley and Modulim, among others, that consulted on the project’s design. Additionally, The Irvine Company and Disneyland Resort helped source materials.
With materials from Irvine’s business community, the effort produced face shield parts on both 3D printers and laser cutters. The massive cross-campus and industry leader collaboration included Applied Innovation’s Cove Prototyping Lab, UCI’s Institute of Design and Manufacturing Innovation, the Speculative Prototyping Lab and FABWorks.
The project brought forth volunteers from the Cove Lab tenants, and UCI students, faculty and staff, and not only were the 20,000 face shields given to UCI healthcare workers, but some were also shared with partner medical centers, like Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
The project’s leftover scraps have been turned into an art piece, “Twenty Thousand Faces” created by Jesse Jackson, associate dean of research and innovation at CTSA, which will be on display at the Cove @ UCI to commemorate all the people behind all the efforts during the pandemic.
Learn more about ways to get involved with Applied Innovation.
Main Graphic: Kate Wokowsky, UCI Beall Applied Innovation