Imperial engineers helping make poverty history
A team of Imperial College mechanical engineering students won an award for developing a device for pasteurising water in rural Nepal. Over one billion people in the world do not have access to clean drinking water
It is estimated that more than 1.1 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. By heating water to 65°C for five minutes the water becomes pasteurised, killing 99.999% of all harmful bacteria – a simple yet necessary process.
The Developing Technologies Department in Mech-anical Engineering, headed by Ron Dennis, is a registered charity which aims to provide engineering solutions to the developing world. This year, a group of third year Imperial students embarked on developing a water pasteurising unit for use in cookstoves in rural parts of Nepal as their ‘Design, Make & Test’ project. The project was run in conjunction with a student from the University of Tribhuvan in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Back in December 2004, the project was entered for the Mondialogo Engineering Award, an international contest organised by UNESCO and DaimlerChrysler. The award is an initiative aimed at promoting intercultural dialogue among young engineers around the world. The initiative calls on students from industrialised and developing countries to work together on proposals for sustainable engineering applications to aid developing countries.
An international jury assessed project ideas for sustainability, feasibility and quality of communication within the project group. More than 1700 engineers and students from 79 nations registered for the contest, forming 412 international teams. From this, 40 finalists were selected in March and two Imperial College teams were lucky enough to be nominated.
As the culmination of the contest, the Mondialogo Symposium was held in Berlin on 27-30 May, and two representatives from the water pasteuriser team, Dan Wilson and Marcus Rafla, went along for the four day event. A total of 65 participants from 28 countries attended, making it a truly international event spanning both the industrialised and developing worlds. The Nepalese student, Sushobhan Joshi, made the 4000 mile trip and met his team mates face to face for the first time .
Naturally, with Daimler Chrysler being the owners of Mercedes, the teams were chauffeured around in their fleet of S classes and put up in a luxurious hotel – a welcome change to the London Underground and student living.
The Symposium consisted of a mixture of sightseeing, tours of the DaimlerChrysler plant and lots of food and drink to ease the intercultural dialogue. On the last day, a series of workshops took place in order to exchange ideas on the contributions of engineering to sustainable development and poverty reduction, followed by the prizegiving ceremony in the evening. Held in Mercedes’ flagship showroom, the ceremony was a lavish event overflowing with champagne and, of course, nice cars.
The tension was high but as the winners were called to the stage it soon became apparent that all 21 teams in the attendance had won. All teams received a prize fund of €15000 along with the glory of being an international engineering award winner.
Congratulations go to the entire team for all their hard work: Dan Wilson, Jonathan Tweed, Caroline Robertson, Philip Wassouf, Marcus Rafla, John Latham, Alex Parker, Julian Soon and Zaina Naboor. The prize money is going to be used to fund an expedition to Nepal to carry out further research and testing of the pasteurising device.
DaimlerChrysler has yet to announce if it will support another award next year, but if this year is anything to go by, it will be a storming success.
If you would like to find out more or are interested in participating next year, contact dan.wilson@ic.ac.uk for further details
