Engineers Without Borders
November 13, 2012, A. Richard Newton Global Technology Leaders’ Conference, UC Berkeley—Bernard Amadei from Engineers Without Borders and the University of Colorado, Boulder proposed engineering innovation for all.
He noted the need to design for the needs of the 5B poor people in the world. This other 90 percent of the world’s population has great needs in water, sanitation, health, housing, education, etc. that need a new mindset to change. The potential disruptions require a change in focus from designs for the first and second worlds. At present, there are no engineering designers working exclusively for the third world populations.
The basic needs of the billions of people are enumerated in many reports. Studies show that life expectancy and gross domestic product are highly correlated with such metrics as energy use per capita. The areas need attention are easily viewed in NASA’s composite photo of the world at night. Over a billion people in Africa have no lights.
Therefore, engineers need to consider new constraints for third-world products. These new products have to be healthy, safe, and sustainable to enable prosperous communities. In most areas, the household is the basic unit of function. There is a great need to reduce the impact of hazards, risk, and social environment to allow these people to consider more than just surviving until tomorrow.
Someone needs to demystify engineering and create the right projects and solutions for these people. Technology is fine, but is not the end goal. Instead, we need to find ways to integrate non-technical people into a highly technical world. Many of the issues are not technical or financial, but political.
For example, in East Jerusalem, they wanted to build a waste treatment facility. They ended up training the farmers to change their methods by introducing a simple test for bacteria, and advising them to avoid those water sources with blue indicators. In Africa, they re trying to develop energy delivery channels. The engineering functions exist, and solutions are available, but none are implemented.
Engineers have to become change makers and social entrepreneurs. Global engineering must address appropriate and sustainable technologies. In addition, the educational establishments need to find ways to transfer their teaching capacities to the developing world people. A mixture of high and low technology can help many and create local and international jobs.
Bringing telecommunications, education, and technology offers a way to change capabilities. Applications of meaningful technologies to change lives of the billions of people living on less than $1 per day to allow them to make twice that amount will change the cycle of poverty and decrease the influence of the local war lords. The innovations will be in applying good engineering practices to wide scale problems that don’t need all of our high technology.
