Engineers Without Borders USA
Georgia Tech
Engineers Without Borders – Georgia Tech is a chapter of EWB-USA, a large non-profit humanitarian organization. The goal of this organization is to support community-driven development projects worldwide through partnerships that design and implement sustainable engineering projects.
EWB-GT achieves its goals through collaboration between students and communities. To efficiently address issues in a variety of diverse communities around the world, EWB has in place a unique network of collaboration in which students, mentors, NGOs and community members work together to identify and address environmental and health issues.
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On-going Projects
Atlanta (Deerwood Academy)
EWB-GT is working with Deerwood Academy, a Title I elementary school in West Atlanta which serves a high poverty and food insecure population, to build a greenhouse and start a STEM education program for students. The greenhouse and STEM education will provide students hands-on learning opportunities as well as providing fresh produce to a community in a food desert. The greenhouse will increase community engagement in the school through students, parents, and other community members.
This semester, we will be refining our successful engineering education workshops and working to expand their reach to more classes and grade levels. We are also working on the more technical and substantive aspects of our design including full Revit models, calculations, and exploring materials. We will also continue to seek out grants, corporate sponsorships, and organize fundraising events. We will visit the school at least once monthly for an engineering workshop, but likely more often for technical information as well.
Ecuador
EWB-GT’s first project in South America is focused in Santo Domingo, Ecuador, working in an underserved agricultural region to increase the capacity of their local healthcare center. We work in collaboration with an NGO called Hombro a Hombro which has run the clinic since 2014 and serves as the region’s critical healthcare provider. Currently, Hombro a Hombro provides care to 10,000 patients annually but there is a population of over 50,000 potential patients. With plans to rehabilitate and expand the facility, this project aims to allow Centro de Salud Hombro a Hombro to serve more people, with the ability to provide new, critical services such as psychiatry, gynecology, and physical therapy. Currently, we are in the Pre-Implementation phase of our project as we develop designs to construct a new children’s waiting space and kitchen while we raise funds, strengthen ties with our community, and ensure our building complies with local standards.
Nepal
The EWB-GT Nepal Project is partnering with the rural community of Chisopani Bhirkhe to bring sustainable access to clean water. Families in this village spend hours each day collecting unsafe water, a challenge that affects health, education, and daily life. After completing our assessment trip this past May, we are now moving into the alternatives analysis phase, where we’ll use our findings to shape the design for implementation and determine the most effective long-term solutions. This stage is especially exciting because the decisions we make now will directly guide the systems we build on the ground in Nepal.
Our team is actively recruiting new members to join the technical, finance, and communications teams. Whether you want to apply engineering skills, help with fundraising and grants, or lead outreach and storytelling, there’s a place for you to make a real impact. By joining, you’ll collaborate with passionate Georgia Tech students, gain hands-on project experience, and contribute to creating a sustainable solution that will transform lives in Nepal. Together, we have the opportunity to bring lasting change to an entire community.
Bolivia
EWB-GT’s Bolivia Project is a new water supply project looking to connect the approximately 95-person community of Catuhuaya with a consistent and sustainable supply of water suitable for irrigation. Our team will work with the community to design, and implement an appropriate solution. We anticipate developing a gravity fed system that would connect the community to existing nearby natural spring sources. This project was adopted in December 2024, and is currently towards the end of the assessment phase. Our focus this semester will be analyzing our assessment trip data and coordinating with the community to determine how we can feasibly implement the gravity fed system so that we can begin the implementation phase. We also hope to fundraise for the implementation phase.
Wish for Wash
The Georgia Tech Engineers Without Borders Wish for WASH team has the ultimate goal of bringing innovative research, design and education solutions to global water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) problems that plague society both domestically and abroad. Our work aligns with the United Nations' 6th Sustainable Development Goal that seeks to ensure access to water and sanitation for all by 2030.
Our EWB-GT team's current projects are as follows:
1. Bioreactor Engineering Research & Development Project which seeks to help drive innovation in the local Circular Sanitation Economy. They will be building a fully functional bioreactor.
2. Design Thinking Team - Over the past 4 years Wish for WASH has been running design thinking workshops and courses with partners such as OpenIDEO, The Paideia School, The Weber School, Girl Scouts of Atlanta, and the Museum of Design Atlanta as a part of our educational and advocacy workstream. Through our workshops and curricula we seek to empower the next generation of STEM learners, design thinkers, and human-centered problem-solvers to use empathic, interdisciplinary and iterative tools to build sustainable and inclusive innovation in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector, helping the world reach the 6th Sustainable Development Goal by 2030.
3. Menstrual Health and Bioplastics Research Team looks to investigate further the sustainability of menstrual products in the US and the EU and publish a paper based on these findings. We are also looking into partnering with a lab for future prototyping and testing for sustainable menstrual health products.
4. Septic Innovation Research Team seeks to research and develop a new septic systems to replace those failing in coastal regions due to climate change and increased flooding.
But that's not all...
