Where Birds and Planes Collide, a Winged Robot May Help

At UC Berkeley, the Blum Center for Developing Economies and the Center for Effective Global Action are working together to formalize development engineering as a field of research - a new generation of engineers committed to making a social impact.

The fate of the Southeast's longleaf pine forests, and the endangered woodpeckers that depend on them, is in jeopardy. Fort Bragg, a station of the US military, is trying to save their local environment.

In an idea borrowed from college athletics called redshirting, STARS enrolls promising engineering students — many of them women and minorities — to give them an additional year of collegiate academic work before they’re ready for the big time. A similar program is in its second year at Washington State University.

SERVIR, a joint development initiative of the United States Agency for International Development and National Aeronautics and Space Administration, leverages data from space to improve environmental decision-making in 30 developing countries.

In Oakland, a non-profit created an industrial arts education school offering youth an alternative classroom for learning where failure is welcomed and everything is hands on, such as welding and forging. The non-profit, which is known as The Crucible, was founded in 1999, and serves more than 8,000 students per year, all managed by close to 100 faculty members.

CFCs, chemicals created in the early 20th century, were an industrial success but destroyed the atmosphere. How a group of environmentalists, scientists, and lawyers in the 70s/80s raised public awareness which ultimately led to the most successful treaty ever, banning CFCs.

The twenty-first century city is a complex organism, and simulating it to anticipate traffic and transportation congestions can be problematic for urban planning. Researchers around the world from Japan to England have used slime models to simulate traffic and transportation patterns, observing realistic growths, congestions, and re-routing opportunities. Biomimicry demonstrates an unconventional but useful process to understand the pulse of the urban environment.

Undergoing surgery is a stress-inducing prospect for anyone, but children are especially vulnerable to anxiety prior to operations. To avoid using risky anti-anxiety medications on young patients, two anesthesiologists at the Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford have developed creative techniques to distract children from their forthcoming surgeries. They use toys and a unique low-cost video projection system called BERT-Bedside Entertainment Theater.

A research fellow at Deakin University’s School of Engineering in Australia has developed a world-first technology 3D printer prototype capable of printing plumbing and sanitation supplies using discarded plastics - and what's more, it runs on solar power. They are partnering with NGO Plan International to implement this technology in the Solomon Islands, where locals will be taught to print the parts they need, thereby solving the dual problems of plastic rubbish and a lack of access to vital mechanical parts for clean water supply. The model gives these communities tools to solve their own problems, and could have endless applications as the technology evolves.

Ecological toilets that use natural composting to break down waste are simple to construct, waterless and are easy to fix. But as philanthropists are finding, getting these to those that need it most is harder than anticipated.