New Master Course in Development Engineering
© 2016 Cambodia - Photo by Camille Schüle, Ingénieurs du Monde
A new Master Level Course on Development Engineering (ENV-470) will be offered from February 2017 by the Environmental Engineering Section at the Environmental Engineering School. This is an optional course open to students from other Schools with the agreement of their home section.
So…what is Development Engineering?
“Development engineering is a new interdisciplinary field that we define as creating solutions that improve human development in low-resource setting at a scale for large positive impact.” *
*Levine, D., M. Lesniewski and A. Agogino. 2015. Design Thinking in Development Engineering. Submitted for Publication
Project-Based Learning and Human-Centered Design
Development Engineering is based on the belief that engineering has the potential to improve the situation of low-income communities by integrating insights from the social sciences along the entire arc of technological innovation, from prototyping to production at scale. The course emphasizes project-based learning and human-centered design. It trains future EPFL engineers to contribute to helping resolve global societal challenges with a particular focus on emerging and developing countries. By putting the users’ needs of low-income countries in the center of the design process, the chances of widespread adoption and therefore large-scale impact are significantly increased. Engineering disciplines have been repeatedly reinvented leading to the emergence of aerospace engineering and biomedical engineering for instance. Development Engineering follows suit as a new emerging discipline with the ultimate aim of poverty alleviation and sustainable development.
Who should take this course?
This course offers EPFL students an entry to an essential new field currently not being offered anywhere else in Europe or in many other parts of the World. This interdisciplinary course will be taught by Dr. Silvia Hostettler (Deputy Director Cooperation and Development Center) and Dr. Klaus Schönenberger (Program Leader EssentialTech) combining their expertise in sustainable development and designing affordable, robust and appropriate technologies for the Global South. This course is for students who are interested in the potential of technological innovation as a pathway to sustainable development.
Development Engineering Journal
A new, open-access, peer-reviewed journal in Development Engineering has also been launched this year http://www.journals.elsevier.com/development-engineering/. It brings together a number of the world’s leading universities including the University of California at Berkeley, MIT, Yale University, Stanford, Princeton, Technion (Israel), UNAM (Mexico),TERI university (India) and EPFL.
Contact: [email protected] / http://cooperation.epfl.ch