Sustainable solutions for Southern Africa

Sunday 25 JAN 2009         22:30  - 01:00

Session Attendees:         Nishi Andra, Vivek Nath, Aditya Subramanian, Olivia Campos, Taylor Hickem

Conclusions

Chat ettiquite

assign a moderator with large groups to ensure that conversations do not diverge 
and everyone feels included in the discussion

type what you want to say ahead of time in notepad 
so that it doesn't show up as "so-and-so" is typing - 
if you want to speak up, just type "spacebar" in the google chat.

Personal Statements:

Nishi - help build sustainable solutions for developing communities
Vivek - engineering solutions for sustainability in developing countries
Taylor- making a positive impact on the quality of life for underprivileged societies
Olivia- devoting my time to improving quality of life in developing nations
Aditya- engineering solutions for global sustainability

Project Objective and Focus Areas

• We want to provide sustainable engineering solutions for improving the quality of life and a viable future in developing communities
  
• Build with the community and not just for the community
  
• Projects focused on infrastructure will require a great deal of collaboration between many organizations and institutes
  
• Political stability is a key factor in selecting our focus region
  
• Southern Africa is a good place to start
  

Types of organizations that will need to be engaged

governments
NGOs
Universities
local community resources - farmers
for-profit corporations
banks
etc...

Reasons why Southern Africa would be a good start

• Opportunity to demonstrate the full potential of sustainable technology in "green field" projects
  
• Relatively stable economy - potential to grow
  
• Others who have tried projects in these areas have been successful
  
• Ability to make a large impact due to the size of the need
  

Open Questions

What is the name of firm that supplies medical equipment for the professor? - for Nishi 
Who are some contacts of people involved in the projects in Zambia? - Aditya

Group Discussion Topics for future sessions

Current focus projects

Sustainability (Energy)
Infrastructure

Current focus countries

        Botswana
        Zambia
        South Africa
        Lesotho
        Swaziland

Other future possibilities

Health Care
Fertility
Education

Topic Questions:    How will we 

Gain the commitment from the underprivileged communities we are trying to help?
Be able to clearly state what we want to do and how we intend to do it?
Be able to demonstrate that our project will be effective at accomplishing its objective ?

        Next scheduled session:

               Sunday 01 FEB 2009     22:30    GoogleChat

Affiliated Organizations

Volunteer Morocco

Organization in Morocco that Nishi's Professor contact is involved in 
Schools
Heath Care
Orphanages / Childcare
$300,000 medical equipment

http://www.volunteermorocco.com/

Barefoot College

http://www.barefootcollege.org/enroll1.htm

Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW)

Helps to coordinate engineering talent within the US to 
apply sustainable technology to the developing world

http://esw.affiniscape.com/

Engineers Without Borders (EWB)

Similar to ESW, appears to be more focused on 
having the engineers involved in the implementation of the projects.

http://www.ewb-international.org/

University of Texas
University of Zambia

Conversation Transcript: (available at Discussion Summaries under Project Documents)