Engineers Without Borders-USA 2007 International Conference
Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA) will stage its 2007 International Conference at UMass Amherst. "On behalf of the entire campus community at UMass Amherst," says university Chancellor John V. Lombardi to the participants of the conference, "let me offer you a warm welcome in anticipation of your arrival on April 12th. We sincerely hope your conference is successful in every possible way."
The theme of the third annual conference, "Bringing Resources Together to Build Vital Communities," will focus on new concepts, technologies, and long-range planning processes to improve quality of life in developing communities. The conference will focus on combining public health issues with engineering solutions; linking to resources in world community service learning; and concentrating on ethnographic issues, economics, effective long-term planning, education, and implementation.
"The decision to hold the EWB-USA conference at UMass Amherst is quite an honor for the new campus chapter of EWB," says Gemma Baro-Montes, one of the founding members of the EWB group at UMass Amherst and presently the director of development and campus coordinator for the conference, "but is also a tribute to the hard work we have already done."
EWB-USA is a non-profit organization established in 2001 to partner with developing communities worldwide and thus improve their quality of life. EWB-USA develops holistic and systemic solutions to the communities it serves. Since its founding, EWB-USA has grown to more than 3,000 members involved in 135 diverse projects located in more than 30 countries worldwide – including Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Thailand, Haiti, Belize, Nicaragua, and Peru.
"We are very proud of our two-year-old campus chapter," notes Chancellor Lombardi, "which in January sent a team of engineers to western Kenya and installed a clean water supply for a community of 3,000 subsistence farmers. We know our students will benefit from their involvement in EWB-USA for their whole lives."
Christopher Flavin, president of the World Watch Institute, will deliver the opening keynote April 12th at 10:00 a.m. on "Upcoming and Innovative Trends in Development for Global Sustainability." Dr. Paul Brandt-Rauf, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, will deliver a closing keynote speech April 14th at 9:00 a.m. on "The Global Challenge of Sustainable Development: Public Health Engineering Without Borders; Bangladesh Case Study."
The three-day EWB-USA conference will bring together engineering professionals and students who share the vision that they can "change the world one community at a time." The event will also include an exhibition hall highlighting projects from one of the fastest growing humanitarian organizations in the United States, and interactive workshops designed to give participants an opportunity to gain hands-on experience.