WEBVTT - generated by Videoportal FH Dortmund

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My name is Aaron Brown.

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I'm a professor at Metropolitan State University
of Denver.

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I was the director for mechanical engineering
Technology for the last

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ten years, and my areas of expertise are the
kind of wide and varied. But

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I've been really focused on humanitarian engineering
and sustainable systems.

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Engineering in general is problem solving.

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Humanitarian engineering is problem solving
for vulnerable people.

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So using our skills as engineers to make life
easier

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for people who are living in marginalized situations.

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In the past, I worked on the Mars

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Curiosity landing mechanism, which was also
used on the perseverance,

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and it worked, which was really cool because
it's really complicated.

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And after working on that project and working
on a Hubble robotics

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to fix the Hubble telescope, etc.,

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I came to the university

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and I had traveled quite a bit and in my travels

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I saw there's disparity in the world and I
thought I have some skills

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and perhaps my skills can help with that disparity

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and getting involved in this kind of work,
you just saw an immediate impact.

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And so I was I was sold.

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I'm a big proponent of hands on learning.

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So applied learning principles.

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This is a high impact educational tool, and
humanitarian

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engineering gives that opportunity to work
directly with communities, doing

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real world problem solving, which gives them
the students

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a a different perspective, a different learning
outcome.

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It's not just theoretical.

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This is the solar furnace.

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This one was built by the students here in
this university, and it's

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somewhat modeled after some of the work that
my students did in Denver.

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And it basically takes solar energy from the
sun and it heats up.

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There are some cans there, maybe beer cans
that have been painted black inside,

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and then that heats the air inside the cans
that have been hollowed out

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to make tubes.

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That hot air comes out here and then that hot
air heats

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your home and reduces your energy. Use.

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We were working with a community that had a
lot of challenges,

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so we built these to help this impoverished
community

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so that they would have lower energy bills.

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So we've done things like a solar installation
to power

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a medical facility in a very rural part of
the Dominican Republic.

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We've done water collection and clean water

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projects, as well as indoor air pollution mitigation.

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In Mexico, we've done bio gas scrubbing in
Mexico.

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So a lot of different projects there varied.

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And probably the most memorable one is something
you wouldn't expect

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in Costa Rica.

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My students responded to the needs of the community,
and the community

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expressed that their main issue is that monkeys
were stealing their chicken eggs.

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And so we created a box where the chickens
laid the eggs

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and went into a separate container that the
monkeys couldn't get to.

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So that's maybe not what you expect for humanitarian
engineering,

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but it did help the community and it was really
fun.

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Everybody enjoyed it except for the monkeys.

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We actually

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have a whole process for humanitarian engineering
that I teach,

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which includes learning from the community
that we're working with.

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And I like to say we're partnering with the
community,

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not that we're coming in from above to save
them, but that we work with them

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in a partnership that's beneficial for everyone.

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The students learn

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that community gets a project that improves
their scenario,

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and the problems that we're working with are
identified by the community.

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Actually, what we've measured is

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several different areas to see how these projects
impact students.

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We looked at soft skills and we looked at technical
skills as well.

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But I think the biggest impact for my students
involved in humanitarian

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engineering is their changed perspective on
the world and how their skills can improve
the lives of others.

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Ich habe heute über multidimensionale Armut
gelernt

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und wie Armut die Gesundheit der Leute beeinflussen
kann.

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Das war für mich ein sehr spannendes Thema.

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Womit ich mich vorher noch nie befasst habe.

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Als Maschinenbauingenieur

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hat man sehr wenig soziale Punkte, die man
im Studium bearbeitet.

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Da ich aus Afrika komme, ist es so, dass unsere
Regierungen

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unterstützt werden müssen.

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Genau.

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Und solche Initiativen werden sehr willkommen
in Afrika sein.

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Deswegen

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Es wäre schon mal gut für mich, wenn ich
dort in der Zukunft arbeite.

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Ich habe viel gelernt, weil ich vorher gar
nichts über das Thema wusste.

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Aber ich habe auch viele Parallelen zu meinem
Studium gesehen

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und es wurden viele Themen verknüpft.

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Das fand ich sehr gut.

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This is a very good initiative taken by FH
Dortmund to

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want to bring in the different professors from
different parts of the world.

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So this gives us, as students of average, a
very wide exposure

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and we can get to know what is happening and
what are the trends

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in throughout the world by just sitting here
in Dortmund.

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I've been to Dortmund now three times to give
seminars

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and it's been really great experience.

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In fact, some of the students in the first
seminar

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I came came to Denver for a semester as a study
abroad.

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And so that's hopefully something that these
kinds of visits to Dortmund can

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encourage is more collaboration, research,

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student exchange, faculty exchange, this mobility.

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And then we learn from each other and we grow
our programs that way.