A Model for Sustainable Humanitarian Engineering Projects

Abstract

The engineering profession should embrace a new mission statement—to contribute to the building of a more sustainable, stable, and equitable world. Recently, engineering students and professionals in the United States have shown strong interest in directly addressing the needs of developing communities worldwide. That interest has taken the form of short-and medium-term international trips through Engineers Without Borders—USA and similar organizations. There are also several instances where this kind of outreach work has been integrated into engineering education at various US institutions such as the University of Colorado at Boulder. This paper addresses the challenges and opportunities associated with balancing two goals in engineering for humanitarian development projects: (i) effective sustainable community development, and (ii) meaningful education of engineers. Guiding principles necessary to meet those two goals are proposed

Teaching ‘community engagement’ in engineering education for international development: Integration of an interdisciplinary social work curriculum

“…Authors have repeatedly stated that social power relations among development workers and community members must be balanced (Amadei, Sandekian, and Thomas 2009;Bennett and Crudgington 2003;Cortese 1998;De Graaff and Ravesteijn 2001;Mihelcic et al 2008;Nieusma and Riley 2010;Schneider, Leydens, and Lucena 2008). Non-authoritarian community engagement (Amadei, Sandekian, and Thomas 2009), listening (Leydens and Lucena 2009) and recognising the strengths of the community (Schneider, Leydens, and Lucena 2008) are critical concepts called for by engineering education and required by social work ethical practices (Dominelli 2005).…”

“…The 1990s brought a surge in interest and action related to sustainable community development in engineering . Today, there are increasing calls to train new engineers in development work that is sustainable while recognising and responding to the social and human components of their work (Amadei, Sandekian, and Thomas 2009;Bennett and Crudgington 2003;Cortese 1998;De Graaff and Ravesteijn 2001;Mihelcic et al 2008;Schneider, Leydens, and Lucena 2008;Segalàs, Ferrer-Balas, and Mulder 2010;UNESCO 2010). Yet, this need remains a challenge in both practice and academia.…”

“…Too often, there is a lack of training in how to best engage and partner with the community to ensure 'community buy-in' and ownership. Current engineering education must shift towards recognition of the social impact and sustainability in engineering development efforts (Adams et al 2011;Amadei, Sandekian, and Thomas 2009;Valdes-Vasquez and Klotz 2011;Woodruff 2006). This obviously starts with the engineering curriculum models.…”

A Decision Framework for Choosing Telecommunication Technologies in Limited-Resource Settings

“…The development practitioner does not consider infringement of patent or the appearance of competition to be problematic. The practitioner welcomes growth, especially if that growth originates in the community itself [5].…”

Breaking the Tyranny of the Semester: A Phase-Gate Sprint Approach to Teaching Colorado School of Mines Students Important Engineering Concepts, Delivering Useful Solutions to Communities, and Working on Long Time Scale Projects

“…Poor design results on any capstone project can damage customer/community trust in the program. However, for HE projects poor results can leave communities in a worse position than they were prior to the student project 9,10 . Said more succinctly, no engineering intervention is often more advantageous than a poor HE engineering intervention.…”