Through the brainstorm platform provided, referred to as “Workspace”, members of the site can collaborate on projects which are conveniently grouped into the seven areas of interest the site focuses on: Water, Energy, Health, Structures, Agriculture, Sanitation, and Info Systems.  The owner of a project can specify the expertise required to work on solving the particular challenge being tackled, as well as the commitment expected.   This  quickly allows people looking to get involved in a workspace to filter out projects until they find one they are not only interested in, but where their knowledge will be valued and utilized.

For those out there less inclined to jump into a project team straight away, the site offers tons of resources: current, relevant news items and interesting blogs; descriptions of solutions already created for global development challenges such as water purification techniques; a “learning center” for newbies, and a bulletin board which allows people to post requests and offer assistance to the community.  This allows everyone involved to learn from each other and consequently build an online community made up of stronger, more flexible thinkers.  Hopefully this collaboration will actually translate into some real changes in the global community- the trick will be getting enough people involved and committed enough to keep returning to the site, and spreading the word.

The great thing about this site is that it doesn’t just focus on engineers, and thus scare away social scientists or anyone with a less technical background: this mind meld of people who think about problems in slightly different ways is really important in finding practical, novel solutions.

But naturally, as an engineer (or a prospective one) what I really like about this site is the statement it makes about the crucial need for engineers in finding solutions for challenges being faced globally.  It’s also difficult to ignore the engineering-y sounding abbreviation given to E4C (bringing back a flood of memories from my Logic class particularly reminiscent of circuit boards)- and makes it that much harder to forget: who says Engineers don’t have feelings?  Check out the site at  www.engineeringforchange.org .

by Shahar Torton