Engineers love to chase big challenges.
Some of the biggest challenges today include advancing green technologies, new
applications in immersive computing and high-tech health systems that extend
our life expectancy, just to name a few. But, by my assessment, the greatest remaining unmet challenge for engineering is radically
improving the quality of life for the so-called "bottom half" of the world's
population.
Some of our key professional societies
(the IEEE and ASME included) have begun to take notice of this new challenge and have recently partnered
to create the website "Engineering For Change," full of good examples and
ideas. Academia is also catching on - two years ago we established arguably the
first institute (Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity) focused on engineering's
role in the developing world.
The more than three billion who struggle
to survive on less than $2 per day have so many interwoven challenges that it
is hard to know where to begin. Everyone has an opinion, or more precisely, an
interest area such as water, microfinance, immunizations, etc. These issues all
need champions and progress, but before you run off to do good work, let me
offer you one important suggestion: first experience the world from the
perspective of those you seek to help.
Their world is not a pristine
laboratory, or even a messy garage with scattered tools. Their world begins and
ends with a laser focus on personal survival.
New individual technologies aren't the
solution this diverse and seemingly anonymous community seeks. Yes they help,
but progress in health, education, personal safety, jobs and individual freedom
are ultimately more vital and more important than new approaches to water
purification, school and shelter design, or low-cost transportation.
So how do we walk in the footsteps of
those whose lives are so fundamentally different from ours that the mere
ability to read this editorial seems to hopelessly divide us?
To get right at this, we are trying
something challenging that we hope will become a new national initiative for students and engineers interested in the humanitarian impact of
our field.
The first Engineering and Humanity Week
will take place April 11-15, 2011, with an ambitious beginning on my campus in
Dallas, TX. The centerpiece of this effort is the student-led construction of a
"living village," which will be an active and realistic test site for
evaluating and improving a variety of ideas that are ready to be deployed in
the developing world.
The concept is simple - our engineering
students will construct and live in a small village that utilizes a variety of
existing ultra-low-cost approaches to shelter, water, sanitation and food
distribution. These students will blog daily about their personal experiences
and develop specific plans to improve the functionality of the village.
From an educational perspective, the
overarching goal is to develop future engineers into highly innovative problem
solvers who are fully immersed in the real challenges of their "clients" -
whether they are communities in the developing world or companies in the
competitive commercial world.
The problems of the bottom half
the world are immense and seem to be getting more difficult by the year. Big
thinking and brave engineers are going to be key in turning this around, but we
must begin somewhere. And this project is as good a place as any to start, and
possibly the best for the engineering-minded humanitarian.
Geoffrey C. Orsak is Dean of
the SMU Lyle School of Engineering. He can be reached at dean@lyle.smu.edu.
We have so many problems in this country that are not addressed humanitarian-focused engineering should start here, in this country. I am always amazed that problems in the US are overlooked to help the survival of people in other countries. I am an engineer and I have seen the homeless people and families in our inner cities. I am also amazed when our universities sit in the middle of "bad" neighborhoods. It doesn't make any sense to me, that these venerable academic institutions are not partnering with their communities to make our world a better place in our own backyards.
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