Engineering students at the Georgia Institute of Technology have a new avenue to engage in social awareness and working to improve conditions in the developing world through the Engineering for Social Innovation (ESI) Center. The center allows students to earn course credit while working on projects that will engineer change for people who need it most.

Georgia Tech’s ESI Center puts engineers in a place to see their innovations having a positive impact on society. (Image courtesy of Georgia Tech.)

The center is also connected to Georgia Tech’s Engineers Without Borders program, in which students can participate as an extra-curricular, providing opportunities for young engineers to solve challenges in the not-for-profit and corporate world.

“This project has been the biggest highlight of my college career. We all want to be able to help, but we don’t always know how. ESI has made taking my skills and applying them to something meaningful an amazing, effortless, and natural process,” said industrial engineering major and member of the SAFE Water Now incubator team, Meriem Guehaiz.

Below are some of the ways the ESI Center is enabling young engineers to make an impact.

Smart Wheelchair

Electrical engineering major Amanda Remus holds a leg brace from the Smart Wheelchair. (Image courtesy of Georgia Tech.)

Working in conjunction with The Rehabilitation Engineering and Applied Research (REAR) Lab, engineering students equipped a wheelchair with a host of sensors to measure knee, foot and back rotation, as well as leg extension, in an effort to analyze wheelchair use.

This information can be used to create smart wheelchairs that are both economical, and best fit a user’s health and mobility needs.

Georgia Center for Nonprofits

Teaming up with the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, computer and software engineering students are working to create a system to automatically generate capacity reports on a monthly basis – a process the GCN is currently doing manually. This initiative will grow to include backend data queries in a user friendly UI. Lowering the costs at nonprofit organizations allows for more money spent where it is needed.

Evolv Bar

Computer science and engineering students are working with the Evolv Bar Project, which produces complete nutrition bars that feed children in impoverished countries, to create a mobile application in iOS. This will help the organization sell more of their packaged food bars, which in turn will further the project’s goal of eliminating global malnutrition.

SPOON Foundation

This chair, made from low-cost materials, will help enable the proper care and feeding of disabled children in developing countries. (Image courtesy of Georgia Tech.)

Another organization working to curb malnutrition in the developing world is the SPOON Foundation, which works to assist disabled and other special-needs children around the world get the specialized care they need to live a healthy life.

GT engineering students have designed a chair that can be made for the low cost of $50 USD, which will assist in the feeding of physically disabled children in low-resource developing countries.

The prototype chairs will soon be sent to India for testing and feedback.

SAFE Water Now

Students have been working with SAFE Water Now to help streamline the process for creating ceramic clay water filters in Tanzania. With only a single person currently making the filters, the supply is unable to match the demand across the arid country. By performing tests on water before filtration, creating a better process to dry the filters during their production, and developing affordable solar energy generators to assist in the process of manufacturing, GT engineering students are making meaningful strides in helping those in need.

SAFE Water Now’s filters are made by a single person in Tanzania. Georgia Tech students are streamlining his manufacturing process. (Image courtesy safewaternow.org.)

Connecting Engineering Skills with Social Impact

Joyelle Harris, a faculty member in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, started the ESI Center as its director in 2015 to show students how easily engineers can make a positive impact on the world.

Building relationships with project partners is important, and Harris ensures the Center teams up with organizations that make positive societal impacts, connect directly with the people they serve, and includes specific projects that are appropriate for students at Georgia Tech.

When engineers have the opportunity to make a positive impact on society, everyone is better for it.

“I want my students to make the connection between their engineering skills and their benefit to society. For example, customized seating for a child with a disability can cost over $1,000. My students built a chair for disabled children in low-resource regions for under $50. When my students see these kids use the chairs they designed, they know that they can use engineering to make a difference in this world,” said Harris.

For more information, visit the Georgia Tech Engineering for Social Innovation website.