Heart to Hand is sending its first batch of ventricular septal defect heart models to Nigeria in partnership with Dr. Uvie Onakpoya, a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon using them to train residents in VSD closure.

Jason Schutt and Reagan Oliphant, third-year medical students, attended the 9th World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery in Hong Kong.

The Hearts in Hand team was awarded a $35,000 grant from Men of Distinction Houston to advance the development of 3D-printed pediatric heart models for surgical training in low-resource settings. This funding will support further refinement and production of the models, with the goal of distributing them to an LMIC partner site pending final approvals.