Blog
Stories from EWB Australia
Building resilience to increasing uncertainty: the role of climate-resilient infrastructure
By Peter McArdle (Engineers Without Borders Australia), Anna Saxby (Humanitarian Advisory Group) and Neil Greet (Australian Security Leaders Climate Group) Increasing uncertainty Vanuatu is one of the most at risk countries in the world for natural disasters,...
‘Impactful Futures’ Immersives return on Lama Lama Country
Caption: EWB's 'Impactful Futures' Immersive took participants on a journey from Cairns to Port Stewart in Far North Queensland in July 2023. ‘Look, listen, learn’ was the mantra of Traditional Owners on Lama Lama Country during EWB’s Impactful Futures Immersive in...
Inaugural Indigenous-led Youth Outreach program kicks off in Far North Queensland
Caption: Indigenous-led Youth Outreach program volunteer facilitator and Indigenous Engineers Group Chair, Grant Maher, showing a participant how to fly a drone during a workshop in Coen, Far North Queensland. A new place-based Outreach program - designed by...
In the workshop with FREO2
EWB established a partnership with FREO2 in June this year, aiming to further develop and scale technology for children and newborns who catch pneumonia or suffer acute breathing troubles - a key cause of death in developing countries. Over the past six months, EWB's...
The 2020 Danny Awards
Each year the Danny Awards, named after EWB founder Danny Almagor, recognises those in our volunteer network who have made an outstanding contribution to EWB’s mission. The 2020 awards were held online on Thursday December 17 2020. Here are the winners...Leader &...
Mobilising the Accessible Moto v2.0
Over the past year as EWB Australia initiated its new mobilisation program which matches volunteers with specific real-world projects to support EWB’s work. To launch the program, we identified three distinct streams: Open Challenges - such as the BirthWatch project...
BirthWatch – from open challenge to mobilised design
Open Challenges are a mechanism that forms part of EWB Australia’s new Mobilisation program. An Open Challenge focuses on a discrete part of a real-life engineering problem, allowing our network to engage in crowd-sourced ideation, creativity and innovation. The...
The EWB Challenge Showcase 2020 – it’s a wrap!
The EWB Challenge Showcase for 2020 has wrapped up three days of online hosted pitches, presentations and webinars, celebrating the hard work of over 10,000 university students. Our partner for this year, the Centre for Appropriate Technology (CfAT), has been inspired by student ideas and insights, some of which may influence our technology development work into 2021, which we will be looking at together soon. All student project reports, summaries and pitches from the EWB Challenge are shared with CfAT – and the EWB team will be looking at them with CfAT to explore what’s next.
Vanuatu: World First Disposable Nappy Ban
Engineers Without Borders Australia (EWB) is working with local organisation, Mama’s Laef and Vanuatu’s Ministry of Health to implement Vanuatu’s world first disposable nappy ban. Vanuatu is setting out to become the first nation to ban disposable nappies. With an estimated 20,000 babies and toddlers on Vanuatu’s 65 islands, disposable nappies are the single largest contributing item to waste in Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila. And their disposal in rural and remote areas is handled in ways that sometimes are as potentially damaging to a communities’ health as open defecation. Which is where EWB’s Tumble Drum Project comes in. A prototype will be rolled out in 2021 in order to test the design, iterate, and ultimately scale the non-electric technology.
EWB organisations worldwide unite in call for professional engineering competencies reform
With just ten years to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals, international branches of Engineers Without Borders, including Engineers Without Borders Australia, are uniting to call for a professional engineering competencies reform. The organisations are united...
Student research leads to award-winning thesis
In 2019, as a final year Systems Engineering student at the Australian National University (ANU), Liam Highmore was accepted into EWB’s Research Challenge – the final-year offering in the EWB Challenge series. EWB’s unique research approach collaborates with community...
EWB wins award for engineering education excellence
The Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) has recognised EWB and its University partners team for engineering excellence for the Humanitarian Design Summits in the Engineering Education Engagement category. The awards, presented at the AAEE Annual...
How terrible traffic lights led Hannah to an Influencer Fellowship
When Hannah was seven years old, she had a massive pet hate. Traffic lights. Being driven around in the backseat of the family car, the need to stop at a traffic light was always a source of frustration. Why did you need to wait for so long? There’s no traffic coming,...
The volunteers that mobilise our volunteers!
Throughout 2020 our in-country overseas volunteering program was halted due to COVID-19. But it hasn’t hampered our ability to support our community programs. This is where our newly recruited mobilisation team has come to the fore. Coordinating a range of projects,...
In rural Cambodia, co-designed technology gives better access to livelihoods
The Agrilab works with communities of people with disability in rural areas of Cambodia to co-design technology that gives them better access to agricultural livelihoods. A total of 79% of Cambodia’s 16.5 million people live in rural areas, with most engaging in...
Announcing new project – ‘Reimagining Pathways’
A new project aims to explore how EWB Australia can support the growth of First Nations STEM leaders of the future. EWB believes that to solve the challenges faced by the world today and into the future, engineering must be redefined as a socio-technical profession....
Safe workplace culture doesn’t exist because it should, it takes strong internal advocacy
By Melanie Audrey (She/Her) At EWB we nurture our network to be progressive, inclusive and welcoming of diversity. However, we were about to learn that safe workplace culture doesn’t exist because it should, it takes strong internal advocacy. In 2018 an EWB Chapter...
Pro-bono project wins water award
The Australian Water Association recognise the outstanding achievements of individuals and organisations making a positive change and help drive a sustainable water future. Australian Water Association’s Queensland Water Awards were announced on 18 November 2020. The...
Hard Rock Sanitation Solutions and World Toilet Day
World Toilet Day is 19 November. It’s a time to consider the massive impact safer sanitation and hygiene solutions can have for the 4.2 billion people living without access to safe sanitation. The day plays a key role in focusing international efforts to achieve SDG 6: Water and sanitation for all by 2030.
Engineering Possibilities Webinar Q&A
During our Engineering Possibilities Webinar Q&A, held on Wednesday November 4th, 2020, we received many insightful questions and whilst we attempted to provide as many answers as possible, there were a handful we couldn’t get to. We've answered these outstanding...
Celebrate Naidoc Week 2020
We are delighted to celebrate NAIDOC Week 2020 and acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements. For 65,000 years First Nations People occupied and cared for our country and were our first farmers, scientists, astronomers,...
2030 Strategy Launch Webinar Q&As
During our 2030 Strategy launch webinar, held on Wednesday October 14, 2020, we were delighted to receive some great questions from our event participants, many of which we did not have the time to answer. We have answered many of these here, in this Q&A post. Q....
Our Manifesto
As part of 2030 Strategy launch, we put a call out to our network to ask them to contribute their voice to our refreshed vision. The result is a video that captures our "manifesto"- a declaration of our intent and an inspiring 'call to arms' for the engineering...
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