An Innovative Approach to Teaching Appropriate Technology for Developing Countries.

Humanitarian engineering continues to grow in popularity among professionals in engineering as well as aspiring students. In response, The Ohio State University offers a variety of engineering service-learning trips and humanitarian engineering courses for students. Such experiences and coursework provide an invaluable experience for engineering students looking to enter the global economy. Provided is an overview of these programs at Ohio State and details of a new course focused on creating appropriate technology for people in developing countries (called FABENG 5200). Justification for the course as well as details of its structure are outlined. Included are aspects of the entrepreneurial mindset, human-centered design, as well as political, cultural, and economic factors that greatly affect the ability of a solution to reach scale. Teaching this complex topic involves lectures, readings from books and journal articles, hands-on labs, and guest speakers. An important aspect of FABENG 5200 is the integration of a teambased design-build project along with a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) partner invested in the student projects. Projects range from improving hand pumps to satellitebased remote monitors that collect usage data to improve sustainability. Models and prototypes are fabricated and incorporated in a cumulative business pitch to the NGO partner at the end of the semester. The authors describe this innovative class and hope to inspire future generations of humanitarian engineers to help solve the world's greatest challenges using an entrepreneurial mindset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]