Community-based 3D printing makers mobilize to solve PPE shortage, helping protect police, fire and rescue, and other critical essential service providers from COVID-19 virus

Maker Mask, a nonprofit, rapidly-growing grassroots ecosystem and digital platform response to the COVID-19 crisis organized by leaders in technology, industry, and government, today announced that the organization's network of nearly 10,000 members operating small batch production sites have been manufacturing National Institutes of Health (NIH)-approved masks using 3D printers and delivering them to local communities across the U.S. and around the world. In addition, the organization is building a global supply chain to empower community-based production capability for the future.

"It has been an action-packed month for the Maker Mask team. It's been amazing and humbling to see the large number of makers around the world downloading our 3D printable mask designs and joining the Maker Mask Movement to help people during the COVID-19 crisis," said Jonathan Roberts, co-founder of nonprofit RPrime and founding partner at venture capital firm, Ignition Partners. "Rory Larson, the inventor of the Maker Mask, has developed new versions of the mask and we're pursuing additional NIH approval on those models as well. We're also expanding our catalog of NIH-approved devices and welcome submissions of other COVID19-related items to highlight on our digital platform. We're looking forward to giving everyone an update on these milestones during our webinar on Thursday this week."

During the past month since the makermask.com website was launched on March 30, nearly 10,000 members from 5,196 maker/hobbyist communities, 185 healthcare organizations, 149 universities, 140 companies, 58 government agencies, 116 nonprofits, and 258 other groups have downloaded more than 125,000 free open-source computer aided design (CAD) files for printing the Maker Mask. People from 145 countries have visited the website resulting in nearly 655,000 global website page views.

Seattle Academy's Dean of Innovations Lysie Taylor said, "We're thrilled to be working with Maker Mask and partnering with the experts at their small batch production hub at Epiphany Parish to launch our own site. They've provided valuable advice about how to fine-tune our production processes and helped organize our volunteers. Creating a production line at the school has been a great hands-on experience for our senior volunteers who are facing an uncertain future due to the COVID-19 pandemic."

The current Maker Mask design is approved by the NIH for all general community applications outside of the direct healthcare setting including front-line essential service providers such as Police/Law Enforcement, Fire and Rescue and other Emergency Response service providers. In addition, the Maker Mask is approved for use by essential workers providing groceries, delivery, transportation, and other supporting services. Since the Maker Mask is designed with replaceable HEPA filters, the mask can be re-used simply by replacing a filter and sanitizing the mask. Typical usage patterns show that during a two month period a person would use only one reusable Maker Mask instead of using and throwing away 300 to 400 disposable N95 masks during the same time period. Due to the demand for mask-making materials, the build of materials for the Maker Mask is now included on the list of essential materials on Amazon.com.

Maker Mask will host a webinar on Thursday, April 30 starting at 2 pm Pacific/5 pm Eastern focused on small batch PPE production and Maker Mask's COVID-19 data analysis and visualization platform. Register here. For more information, visit makermask.com.

During the past month, the Maker Mask Initiative has received more than $100,000 in donations to help offset the costs of mask-making materials and to further develop the platform. To make a donation, visit https://www.makermask.com/donate.html

About Maker Mask

Maker Mask is a rapidly-growing grassroots ecosystem and digital platform response to the COVID-19 crisis. The nonprofit organization is enabling communities to create necessary goods locally and quickly to reduce the spread of disease, protect more people, lighten the burdens on medical facilities, the Department of Defense, and government agencies. The Maker Mask initiative gives people around the world something they can do to be part of the solution to the COVID-19 pandemic while the organization works toward its long-term goal of building and training local production capability for the future. Maker Mask is an RPrime Initiative and currently funded by the RPrime Foundation. The RPrime Foundation, co-founded by Jonathan Roberts, is a nonprofit digital platform connecting individuals to communities of all types including faith-based, education, government, NGO and all service organizations, to meet societal and community needs. Roberts is also a board member and investor in NavigatorCRE which is driving the powerful ViralInsights/NavigatorCRE data analysis and visualization platform that is an important part of the Maker Mask initiative.