When I first considered what my favorite tech invention from the last 10 years might be, I immediately thought of things like 3D printing, video games, and smart devices; types of technology that I consider useful or cool in my own everyday life. But when I considered the second part of the question, I realized I wanted to dig a little deeper. I live in a privileged country, and the technologies I interact with daily are not necessarily important or impactful to the majority of the world. I wanted to find a technology that not only has a positive impact, but is also widely accessible and has long-lasting effects. After researching different technologies developed within the last decade, I’ve decided that my favorite invention is the Universal Anaesthesia Machine. Originally conceived of in 1990, but only refined and brought into production in 2014, this device delivers anesthesia to patients in order to be able to safely perform surgery on them. While the UAM wasn’t the first machine created to be able to do this, what makes the UAM revolutionary is the fact that it was designed to be able to operate without the need for reliable, consistent access to electricity. When you’re designing machines to be used in a country like the United States, you can usually depend on that kind of infrastructure and technological stability. However, these machines become useless in parts of the world where reliable access to electricity is a luxury or an impossibility. The invention and production of the UAM make anaesthesiology accessible to healthcare systems in rural or impoverished parts of the world. I often struggle to describe what it is I actually want to do as a mechanical engineer, but I feel that the UAM is a perfect example of the type of projects I’d like to work on. While I really admire some of the technology that’s been designed to make our lives more comfortable or convenient, there is a greater need for technology that prevents suffering and saves lives. To design life-changing products effectively, technology has to be accessible to the greatest number of communities or people. We need to develop technology that’s usable in less privileged parts of the world and consider the unique limitations they might struggle under. I want to be the kind of engineer who prioritizes the accessibility of my designs in order to broaden the impact of technology and can make truly useful machines.