Mondialogo is a biennial award scheme, which focuses on intercultural collaboration. Ever two years, they reward schools and student groups for their creativity and ingenuity. The Award was born as a brainchild of two, perhaps unlikely, partners: Daimler and UNESCO. Daimler, the automobile giant, might seem an unexpected partner for a project such as this. Dieter Zetsche, CEO of the company, however, stresses the importance of dialogue and exchange between different countries and cultures for his corporation. “Mondialogo seeks to promote intercultural dialogue, understanding and exchange among young people.”

 Two EWB-UK members, James Davies and Daniel Smith are participating in the Mondialogo Engineering Awards, together with their overseas partners. Both have made it through the first selection which means they are in the top thirty projects which have been selected out of more than 900 entries. The next step now is the final round this weekend, in Stuttgart, Germany.

The first project we will be looking at is ‘Sheltered House Design and Construction Technology for Hurricane Vulnerable Zones in the Caribbean’, a collaboration between James Davies, from the University of Bristol, Stanley Evans Daniel from ‘Universite Ruben Leconte’ in Haiti and Ivan Martinez Herrera, from ‘Instituto Superior Politecnico Jose Antonio Echeverria’ in Cuba. We speak to James, who gives us more information on the project.

 

James is 21 and studies Civil Engineering at the University of Bristol. This year however, he’s taking an ERASMUS year at INSA Lyon, in France. He got involved with EWB-UK in his first year at Bristol and became head of fundraising for the branch and has stayed involved ever since.

James’ Mondialogo proposal grew out the collaboration between the University of Bristol and a Cuban university. James explains: “A few years ago, a link, called Pitad, has been created between the University of Bristol and CUJAE University in Havana, Cuba. Last year, I was one of the lucky students to go and work there on some new projects. The project I worked on out there wasn't exactly the same as this one, but after the devastation caused by hurricanes Ike, Gustav, and Paloma last year it was deemed that this would be a better direction for the project to head into, and so we changed it.”

The project James originally was working on was a design for a sustainable farm.  “We wanted to create a system where sustainable materials could be cheaply manufactured and then used to construct sustainable farms for the urban farmers of Havana. We wanted to improve their production, efficiency, and, most importantly, quality of life. But, as I said, this changed after the devastation of the hurricanes. The two projects may seem very different but they utilise the same construction methods and materials. The cheap, yet high quality, design which was being proposed for the farm could easily be transformed for this project, so all the work has been of equal use to. The reason we chose to focus on Haiti and Cuba is simply because they are the two Caribbean islands most frequently hit by hurricanes and tropical storms, which cause loss of life and infrastructure practically every year.”

The final aim of the project is to build low cost, yet secure and sustainable housing for vulnerable areas in Cuba and Haiti. The main goal however, is to include the local community in the design and construction, and utilise locally available materials.  James: “The idea is the construction of a house based on a sheltered room (steel bar reinforcement) made of concrete vaults and beam systems with the possibility to expand according to the available resources and needs. To make the project more sustainable, we also want to establish a training centre in the affected zones, so the locals can continue to build weather- resistant shelters.”

James doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but has a clear plan for what would happen if his team wins: “The money will go into the project and Pitad as an organisation. We hope to be able to use the money to facilitate the implementation of the project and the further work/research needed for successful implementation.”

The second project, ‘Reuse of Waste Materials for [a] Sustainable Future’, is a collaboration between Daniel Smith, president of the EWB Cardiff branch and K. Asha, from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

Dan is a Civil and Environmental Engineering student at Cardiff University and is currently on a year in industry placement with contracting company Alun Griffiths Ltd. 

The project idea in general is ‘Supporting the Indian brick industry: usage of waste

materials to produce bricks.’ Their objective is to produce affordable bricks that are environmental friendly and healthier for the local people. This would lead to an improvement of the living conditions in rural areas of India. The proposed solution is the usage of fly ash and phosphogypsum as industrial by-products for the production of FAL-G (fly ash lime gypsum) bricks. The materials are available locally for low costs. Local people can learn to produce these

building materials. Also, these bricks do not have to be burned, which helps to reduce CO2 emissions.

 

Dan was looking for something to do in his year in industry and was looking into the possibility of working abroad. He thus went to talk to his personal tutor, 'Professor Hywel Thomas', head of Engineering. “Considering my background with EWB-UK and previous volunteering experience in Uganda he suggested I would contact the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. So I was linked to Asha. To facilitate our project we needed to find funding, we heard about Mondialogo and went from there,”says Dan.

“Basically we have bricks which have been researched by Asha. The technology exists, now we need the implementation. The plan is to look at ways in which it can be implemented both in India and the UK. We also need to look at how you get said waste material from where it to where it needs to be,” he continues. Social enterprise might be a possibility to facilitate this. “We need to sell it as an idea, rather than product. But before we do this, we need quality control to make sure it lives up to a standard. We need to go from the laboratory into the real world. That’s what Engineering is all about: applying known technology.”

Dan concluded by saying that whether they win or not, the project will live on. “We can find where we could make it in UK. I definitely want to go to India to see how it can be implemented, but if we win, Asha can come here. Next year I will take it on as my dissertation project.”

We wish both teams the best of luck!