How open source is making diabetes more manageable

For the average person, you go about your day without too much thought to what is happening within your body. For diabetics however, their entire day is built around monitoring the minute changes that could have serious health implications for them. In order to manage these changes, they need special tools that are designed to track as blood sugar levels rise and fall, produce insulin and time its delivery to maintain health. But what happens when the tools and systems don’t serve the people who need them? 

Premiering today, "Opening the Loop: Autonomy, Access, and Insulin"—the latest documentary in the Open Source Stories series from Red Hat—follows the growing DIY community of makers, patients and caregivers that are reshaping those systems to better match their needs. Their work happens in bedrooms, at kitchen tables, in conference rooms and at the lab bench. And it’s making life better for untold numbers of others. 

In the film we learn about the challenges type 1 diabetics and caregivers face as they identify the need for insulin, access and acquire it and actually inject it. These challenges stem from the use of closed-source solutions like off-the-shelf blood glucose monitors that only share data with certain devices, insulin pumps that communicate with some monitors, but not others, and issues with the insulin itself. 

Like other installments of the Open Source Stories documentary series, "Opening the Loop: Autonomy, Access, and Insulin" underscores the ways openness is a catalyst for change. Open source is changing the world in many different ways—not just impacting digital technologies, but also the way we work together to solve some of the world's most pressing problems. At Red Hat, we've long understood the power of collaboration to produce amazing results. With Open Source Stories, we’re showing what people can do when they make things in the open—because when we share, we thrive.

The film features several people on the front lines including: Anthony Di Franco, founder, The Open Insulin Foundation; Kate Farnsworth, director, The Nightscout Foundation; Yann Huon de Kermadec, research scientist, Counter Culture Labs; Dana Lewis, co-founder, OpenAPS; Howard Look, founder, president and chief executive officer, Tidepool.org; and Dr. Lisa Scheifele, executive director, Baltimore Underground Science Space (BUGSS).

For replays of the film and more information about Open Source Stories and "Opening the Loop: Autonomy, Access, and Insulin" visit https://www.redhat.com/en/open-source-stories. Watch this film, revisit some of our past documentaries, get inspired and join the conversation on social media using the hashtag #opensourcestories.