CDC invited a few companies to come together in a design thinking session in DC to explore how a better suit could prevent the spread of Ebola for medical professionals. Armed with our sketch pads and sewing neddles, we participated in this two day event.

1. www.bigstudioconsulting.com
1 Broadway. 14th floor
Cambridge MA 02142
info@thebig-studio.com
Workshop in Washington D.C. attended by Big Studio
Creating a Better Protective
Suit Against Ebola

2. About the
Issue
The 2014 West African Ebola Outbreak and the U.S
Government Response: An Opportunity for Design Thinking
At the beginning of 2014, an outbreak of Ebola spread from
Guinea, in West Africa, to Liberia and Sierra Leone. Smaller
outbreaks also appeared in Mali, Senegal, and Nigeria. As of
December 16, 2014, affected countries reported a combined total
of 7,347 deaths due to the outbreak.
In September, 2014, Médecins Sans Frontières, the primary NGO
in the region tasked with helping those affected by the outbreak,
warned that they would fail to contain the illness’s spread without
significant assistance from the world’s industrialized nations. Later
that month, President Obama declared the outbreak a top priority
for the federal government, and by October the administration
convened the Grand Challenge to Fight Ebola, inviting innovators
from all fields to come together to help stop Ebola's spread.
2

3. About the
Challenge
A Workshop to Improve PPEs
3
A version of the PPE worn by
healthcare workers in West Africa
Experts on health care delivery in West
Africa identified the drawbacks of the
Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE,
worn by health care workers as a barrier
to effective health care delivery and
improving health care outcomes for Ebola
patients.
On October 10-11, 2014, the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy
(OSTP) and the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID)
organized a workshop bringing together a
diverse group of professionals to redesign
the PPE.

4. Day One Overview
The workshop employed a design-thinking strategy to find an
innovative new design for a PPE.
• Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and doctors
from Médecins Sans Frontières, recently returned from the
field, educated the attendees on ebola, treatment methods,
and the process for putting on and removing the personal
protective equipment.
• Shifting teams moved from brainstorming possible solutions
to prototyping
Introductions
& Education
Brainstorming &
Prioritizing
Prototype Solutions
from Morning
Presentation
of Prototypes
9-11 11-12 1-3 3-4
Big Studio’s Adam Hasler models a
classic version of a PPE
MORNING AFTERNOON

5. Afternoon Prototyping
Breakout teams built simple demonstrations of the solutions pitched during the morning session.
Above: a breakout team deconstructs
versions of existing designs of PPEs in
order to make improvements. Suit
manufacturers provided the PPEs with the
intent of bringing the new designs into
production within weeks of the workshop.
Left: A breakout team member
modeling a PPE with design
improvements. Team members
removed elastic from the ends of
the sleeves and legs, added an
extra layer of fabric to go over
the boot, and reconfigured the
suit to open from the back
instead of the front, thereby
eliminating the need for an
apron and thus additional layers
of clothing that caused wearers
of the suits to overheat. Lastly,
team members began the early
development of a new zipper, as
they had found that small
zippers were difficult to grab
while wearing layers of gloves.

6. Day Two Overview
The workshop changed venues for the second day,
and took place at TechShop, a makerspace equipped
with an endless variety of tools for fabrication.
• Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and
Workshop participants created working prototypes
of ideas developed and refined the day before, from
redesigned head gear, ventilation systems, and a
cooling apparatus, and used various tools, from
sewing machines to create a new design of PPE
suit to 3D printers to create a new plastic pull tab
for zippers.
• Hosting the second day of the event at the
makerspace allowed many of those who had never
employed innovation techniques or design thinking
in their professional life the opportunity to get hands
on, iterate, and create tangible solutions
A workshop participant from the World Bank,
left, discusses suit manufacturing techniques
and design constraints with the head of
research and development from a PPE
manufacturer. Adam Hasler from Big Studio
worked closely with these two and a designer
from design and consulting firm IDEO to
fabricate a new suit using designs developed
the day before.

7. 7

8. 8
Key Takeaways
• The approach of the Grand Challenge, which included not only the workshop but an
online platform powered by OpenIDEO indicates a growing appreciation on the part of
the federal government, as well as established businesses and NGOs, of the
importance of process in developing and deploying solutions to urgent problems.
• The mix of professionals made up of those experienced in design thinking and
innovation strategy and those with deep, domain specific knowledge and expertise
elicited great results. The process of learning from each other was not only enjoyable,
but very productive and led to great results.
• The decision of the organizers of the workshop to involved PPE manufacturers cannot
be understated. Participants in the workshop all felt an added sense of purpose in their
work, knowing that their design would likely make it into the field within weeks.
• There’s tremendous potential in this approach for future challenges of all kinds.

9. Join us for our next session
info@thebig-studio.com