Given that many young people today are already so passionate about sustainability, how can we better engage them in this movement and empower them to contribute their unique perspectives and talents? How does engineering tie into this picture of sustainability, and how can engineers best apply their backgrounds and skillset to help us further advance our progress towards a healthier future?
Johanna Wagstaffe interviews members of Vancouver's Neighbour Lab, 2018 winners of the ESW Resilient CommUnity Design Challenge. Watch and listen here.
Brittany Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss:
- The important role of engineers in solving the world's sustainability problems.
- Educating and engaging Millennials and Gen Z's around sustainability.
- The rise of sustainable engineering on campuses around the country.
- Advice and recommendations for sustainability professionals.
We are so excited to share our 2017-2018 Annual Report with all of you. We hope that you will celebrate ESW's accomplishments from the past year with us, including the continued innovation of our Resilient CommUnity Design Challenge winners and that we impacted 500+ people in two communities through our newest program, Build Day.
As we look forward to the 2018-2019 fiscal year, ESW will to advance our work to empower young engineers to tackle the toughest sustainability challenges by focusing on our three key priorities: building more partnerships with community organizations, growing our membership globally, and creating more opportunities for professionals to engage in building a better world.
Between the momentum we’ve built through our membership and the fervent calls for action on climate change from concerned citizens across the world, it’s clear that we need to prepare the next generation of problem solvers to tackle problems that no generation before have had to face.
Vancouver faces a 1-in-5 chance of experiencing a serious earthquake within the next 50 years. Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) student members at the University of British Columbia and Emily Carr University are working to keep Vancouver citizens safe in the event of a catastrophic earthquake.
Students Stephanie Koenig, Emi Webb, Adele Therias, Halina Rachelson and Leah Karlberg are participating in ESW’s Resilient CommUnity Design Challenge (CommUnity) – an international program that unites college students to collaborate with local organizations on solutions to build local resilience.
The all-women team created the “Neighbour Hub” to empower community members to prepare for a major earthquake with their neighbors. The structure will not only disseminate resources, first aid and information, but serve as a social meeting point for community members. The “Neighbour Hub” is designed to engage local residents in community water monitoring and in developing emergency preparedness plans.
The design features solar-powered LEDs for nighttime visibility, filtered water stations from collected rooftop rainfall, and bike generated power for users to charge their cell phones.
Local artists will be invited to codesign the “Neighbour Hub” to reflect the ideas and cultural diversity of the community.
Students were inspired to take on earthquake resilience after surveying the lack of preparedness of their own community. Adele Therias states, “It is important that people prepare themselves and their families, but it will be most effective if neighbours support each other.”
CommUnity has been run for two years and have seen the development of 15 innovative solutions to build community resilience. Through the program Adele says that she has met “inspiring community leaders and experts who have shown me the passion, energy and collaboration needed to build resilience.”
You can read more about CommUnity here: http://resilience.eswglobal.org/
If you are anything like us, you are passionate about making the world a better place. Whether you want to work on photovoltaics or waste reduction systems, we know you want to ensure you are getting the education you need.
If you are in high school faced with the daunting task of applying to colleges and universities, you might be overwhelmed with options.Read more
Early childhood impressions of environmental pollution led Matthew Kozuch to seek out solutions, and while at UC Berkley he worked on several projects with Engineers for a Sustainable World. After graduation he continued with them and became the National Build Day Coordinator. This is the first of hopefully an annual event in more than 50 chapters across the United States.
Pictured: Brittany Bennett, Executive Director of ESW, at the 2017 ESW Annual Conference. Brittany is one of the many queer members of ESW.
ESW is proud of its inclusive and diverse culture, but in the field of engineering at large, the representation with respect to sexual orientation is still quite skewed, despite apparent recent advances. In celebration of the recently concluded Pride Month, we at ESW wanted to share perspectives from some of our LGBT+ members, as young professionals in their field. We put together some questions for them and we’ve shared some of their answers here (different answers separated by blank lines) :Read more
Vancouver faces a 1-in-5 chance of experiencing a serious earthquake within the next 50 years. Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) student members at the University of British Columbia are working to keep Vancouver citizens safe in the event of a catastrophic earthquake.Read more