Inventions to steal, happily.

X-WOW began as the Pathology Without Borders Initiative. From December 2018 its founder found microscopes new homes with people who needed them, seven by the old site's count, and began asking labs for the retired ones gathering dust. In 2019, kind people chipped in for a low-cost slide scanner, so doctors treating children with cancer in Malawi could share slides with colleagues about 11,900 km (7,400 miles, as the old site put it) away. Scanned biology slides went online free, for students who have no microscope, and a student in Abuja who helped went on to start a kids' science club. When classrooms closed in 2020, scientists gave free online lectures to students across Africa and beyond, part-funded by the Royal College of Pathologists' Public Engagement Grant.

What those years showed: a microscope in a cupboard helps nobody, and neither does software that needs a powerful computer. Tools have to be light and cheap to reach people. So X-WOW now goes beyond pathology and old equipment: it designs its own ways to see more closely, in the open, and gives them away. SHRINK and SWELL are the first.

X-WOW's founder isn't interested in money, fame or research credit, and would rather see these ideas built than see a name on them.

If you build one, it's yours. Improve it, publish it, teach with it, and you're welcome to claim the success. CC0 lets you sell it too, but it can't clear anyone else's patents or the safety rules for selling a device: each invention has a legal note.