3. An intuition supported by a group of volunteers

On the evening of March 16, Quentin Adam brought together a few entrepreneurial friends from Nantes (V Salou, B Jasmin, E Feller, E Vincent), and also contacted Pierre-Antoine Gourraud, university professor at the Nantes Faculty of Medicine and hospital practitioner, specialist in digital technology and immunogenetics, who shares their entrepreneurial culture.

Combining voluntarism and pragmatism, the Makers for Life collective aims to develop an emergency artificial respirator. These "Makers" are inspired by the 3D printing community. Originally, they were non-experts running digital start-ups, specializing in the creation of products using 3D printers.

The goal was set: to develop and launch industrial production (> 1,000 units) of a mechanical ventilation device, the MakAir, at low cost (a few thousand euros per fan instead of the...