First-time participation of students from the TU Darmstadt in the Engineers Without Borders Challenge 2021/2022

The Engineers Without Borders Challenge is a competition that is being held this year for the tenth time between different universities and colleges from all over Germany. The competition grows every year. This year, students from eleven universities and colleges took part: FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, HAW Hamburg, RheinMain University of Applied Sciences, Schmalkalden University of Applied Sciences, Ruhr University Bochum, RWTH Aachen University, TH Mittelhessen, TH Cologne, TU Darmstadt, TU Dortmund and University of Paderborn.

In the competition, the students are confronted with real problems of development cooperation, for which they are supposed to work out solutions independently. By actively working on these problems, they must deal with the challenges of the 21st century – globalization, climate change and social inequality.

Universities and colleges offer participation in the practice-oriented challenge as part of a module in which theoretical knowledge of infrastructures in developing countries, project management and creativity techniques are taught. The Department of Spatial and Infrastructure Planning has been offering the “Interdisciplinary Development Project for Infrastructure Solutions” since the winter semester 21/22.

Solar-powered water pumps help irrigate fields in many parts of the world, helping to improve food security. This is also the case in Nepal. However, since continuous irrigation is not necessary, the pumps are only used at 30 percent of their capacity on average over the year. As part of this year's Engineers Without Borders challenge, the aim was to examine the additional potential of the solar panels and to develop alternative usage concepts that do not require additional investments in the form of battery storage. MinErgy is involved as a local partner organization in order to ensure a close connection to the relevant location on site. MinErgy is a Nepalese NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) with many years of experience in developing environmentally friendly and energy-efficient technologies for rural communities

During the winter semester, two teams from TU Darmstadt work in parallel on their concepts. The solutions aim to make effective processes in smallholder agriculture, such as drying the harvest and grinding grains, easier and more efficient. In addition, great importance was attached to issues of social and cultural sustainability during the development of the concepts in order to ensure long-term use by the members of the village community.

At the closing event on February 11, 2022, which took place via Zoom, in addition to the 22 teams of students, a panel of experts also took part, consisting of representatives of Engineers Without Borders e.V., the partner organization MinErgy and some external speakers. After the presentation of all concepts, the jury meets to determine the winning team. A team from TH Köln was chosen as the winner of this year's challenge with a concept for milk cooling. This gives the team the opportunity to further deepen their concept in cooperation with the partner organizations and to implement it on site.