After manufacturing and donating more than 200,000 gallons of hand sanitizer at Nebraska Innovation Campus, production and distribution will cease on July 31.
Face masks are now the new norm in classrooms, offices and public spaces across the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
For students who are deaf or hard of hearing, however, interacting with someone wearing a face mask can be challenging. The masks block vital facial cues, take away the ability to lip read and make it harder to hear the speaker’s voice.
A Canadian company, JCA Electronics, has become the newest partner at Nebraska Innovation Campus, Dan Duncan, NIC’s executive director, announced May 21.
JCA develops advanced technology solutions for mobile machines and is emerging as a leader in technology solutions that enable advanced precision agriculture and autonomous applications. The company applies a combination of advanced technologies, engineering expertise and manufacturing capabilities to enable unique mobile off-highway machine systems.
Food safety inspectors employed by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service are receiving a supply of hand sanitizer thanks to an innovative partnership between Nebraska’s ethanol industry and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
The hand sanitizer will be used by the men and women responsible for inspecting more than 6,500 meat-processing facilities across the country, ranging from “mom-and-pop” facilities that handle only a few animals at a time to the giant beef, poultry and pork plants that employ thousands of people.
In mid-March, when personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer were scarce, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Nebraska Innovation Campus helped address those needs.
The efforts have rippled across Nebraska and the United States. To date, hundreds of communities and thousands of individuals have benefited from the expertise and innovation found at NIC.
While assembling up to 1,800 face shields a day, staff at Nebraska Innovation Studio are also assisting coordination of an army of community workers and volunteers to make more personal protective equipment, namely gowns for first responders and fabric masks for essential workers.
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln is partnering with the Nebraska ethanol industry to produce hand sanitizer for use by hospitals, nursing homes, doctors’ offices and other health care providers in Nebraska and nearby areas.
After a successful initial run April 5 at the Food Processing Center on Nebraska Innovation Campus, the partners completed their first full day of production April 6.
Nebraska Innovation Studio is closed to the public, but its leaders and members are working around the clock to produce face shields for hospitals across the state.
Personal protective equipment shortages have been well documented throughout the United States as COVID-19 has spread rapidly. That trend is also hitting Nebraska, where hospitals are starting to run short.
