Humanitarian Engineering: A New Interdisciplinary Course on the Application of Engineering Skills to Local and Global Humanitarian Challenges

Abstract

Many students express a desire to apply their technical engineering skills to produce positive societal impacts, and although sustainability frameworks do take this into consideration in traditional engineering curricula, there are relatively few avenues for students to work on real global social issues during their undergraduate studies. This paper describes a new interdisciplinary course developed at UBC on the use of engineering skills to solve humanitarian challenges.The course is composed of case-study analyses, interactive activities and simulations, group discussions and seminars, and a technical design project completed in partnership with an NGO or charity working on a particular humanitarian challenge. The rationale and design of the course and its deliverables, as well as student feedback on this first iteration of this course are presented.

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