Organilab

In a laboratory chemistry setting, various reactants and equipment are housed in multiple cabinets and compartments, with numerous individuals working across different shifts. This frequent turnover often led to daily conflicts over misplaced equipment and supplies, as inadequate and confusing labeling contributed to the chaos.

A request was made to reorganize the inventory and establish a coherent and intuitive coding system, making it easier to locate items without wasting time searching through cabinets. Initially, an Excel-based inventory was suggested, but the intricacy of the laboratory furniture made the codes impractical and unintuitive.

During conversations between Solvo's team, the concept of a reactant and equipment location system emerged, inspired by the laboratory but with a broader application for various scientific and industrial settings. The project progressed slowly in its early stages, until 2020, when professionals, technicians, and students from the National University of Costa Rica's research and teaching laboratories joined the effort, aiming to use the software for free and provide feedback.

As the tool gained traction, more individuals and organizations from the chemical industry and educational institutions contributed valuable feedback, enabling Solvo's development team to create a versatile and adaptable tool for various laboratory types.

From the beginning, the vision was to create a collaborative and open-source tool, as the chemical industry is primarily dominated by proprietary software. To date, educational institutions have utilized the software free of charge, with over 500 students utilizing it within a year to report waste disposal in a chemistry laboratory course at the National University of Costa Rica.

With the growing user base and increasing interest, the team at Solvo is now reaching out to the global open-source community to continue providing the free version of Organilab to educational institutions and small chemical industry businesses. The goal is to support users in managing inventories and processes in laboratories, initially in English and Spanish, anywhere in the world.

To achieve this, Solvo is launching a fundraising campaign to solidify the free version of Organilab and continue supporting the scientific and industrial communities with open-source software solutions.

https://github.com/sponsors/Solvosoft