Uniting for Leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous Medical Instrumentation, Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Design (UnLIMITED) Training Program

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The manufacturing of medical devices is an important engine to Canadian economic development. By 2025, Canada aims to be a top-three global provider in the health and bioscience sector with medical devices taking a 30% share. Excellence in medical devices manufacturing relies not only on technological innovation but also user community acceptance. Technological innovation embraces both design and entrepreneurship with the former as the means and the latter as the end, but user community engagement is also a key part of training future entrepreneurs, especially to work with Indigenous clients. The proposed program, Uniting for Leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous Medical Instrumentation, Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Design (UnLIMITED), will be the first program in Canada to train highly qualified personnel in systematic medical device design innovation and entrepreneurship from both engineering and Indigenous lenses. The program has three goals along with the training curricula: (1) championing systematic design innovation in medical devices, (2) championing entrepreneurship innovation in medical devices, and (3) championing cultural design innovation, specifically for understanding and incorporation Indigenous knowledge into medical devices. The program can be embedded into any graduate program in the field of biomedical and healthcare engineering in Canadian post-secondary institutions, where specifically the trainees fulfill the thesis requirement for Master and PhD under the supervision of mentors who are 10 faculty members of University of Saskatchewan, University of Waterloo, and University of British Columbia along with collaborating distinguished scholars, business leaders, and Indigenous community leaders. UnLIMITED will contribute to the advancement of trainees committed to decolonization of medical device design and more equitable economic development of Canada through scaffolding opportunities for Indigenous and non-Indigenous medical specialists to learn alongside each other with a mutual goal of improving the health of Canadians in social harmony.