On June 19th, two teams of Imperial Horizons students attended the finals day of the Engineering for People Design Challenge.

The competition is organized by Engineers Without Borders (EWB) UK and is open to universities across the country.  The teams had been studying ‘Design for Sustainable Development’, within the Global Challenges field of the Imperial Horizons programme, and the quality of Imperial entries ensured that two proposals were selected for the finals.  As their tutor, I was very proud of this achievement.

Each year EWB UK works with a non-governmental organization (NGO) in the developing world and asks students to generate designs for the community in which they are based.  This year students were asked to create designs to further sustainable development in Lobitos – a former oil town on the north Peruvian coast – and the partner was a local engineering NGO called Ecoswell.

Imperial Horizons students rose to the challenge very well. At the finals Aishwarya Pattar and Vincent Chung presented their team’s design for an 'Organic Waste Compressor' (pictured above). They gave a professional presentation that demonstrated intelligent planning for the use of organic waste as both a fuel and fertilizer. It was particularly impressive for its detail on the implementation strategy tailored for the community, including an incentive scheme to encourage uptake amongst locals.

Juyeon Chae, Bryan Lim, Matthew Ho and Ryan Lin presented a design for a composting technique entitled 'Effective Microorganisms’. There was strong interest in the technique and students received complimentary feedback along with business cards from researchers looking for new ventures!

Overall, the finals were a fitting end to the competition and to the year’s work.  The students’ design proposals exhibited at the event emphasized the importance of considering the local context, as well as producing a robust technical design. Personally, I am now looking forward to next year’s EWB UK challenge in Kibera, an urban settlement in Nairobi, Kenya.