How Engineers Without Borders taught me Design Thinking

Before I made the decision to go back to school for my Master’s Degree, I was a volunteering member with the Pittsburgh Chapter of the non-profit organization called “Engineers Without Border” also known by its acronym “EWB.”  For those blog readers who never heard of EWB a few common answers to a few common questions are: Yes, EWB is somewhat similar with the well-known “Doctors Without Borders” in the sense our mission is to provide basic human needs to developing communities around the world.  No, EWB has no association with Doctors Without Borders.  We just kindly borrowed a portion of their name. But I digress….

At EWB, we utilize our engineering skills to partner with developing communities in developing a solution for their specific basic human needs problem; example problems would be gaining access to clean water, clean sanitation, etc.  Such projects seem simple and expect to have a straight forward solution: need access to water then provide a pumping system, need clean water then provide a filtrating system, and many more a sets of standard problem with a standard solution.  Though when factoring the differences of cultures both social and economic between middle-class engineers from the US and let’s say an indigenous village living in 12,000 feet above sea-level in the Andes living on less than $2.00 a day……simple becomes more and more complex.

There is a story we tell at EWB to new joining volunteer members.  The story begins with a EWB chapter who partnered with a small village in South America on a water supply project.  The EWB chapter flew to the small village in South America to survey the lands, meet with the villagers, and gain a better understanding of problems the village was having in obtaining their daily water.  The EWB chapter learned that it took an hour each day to walk to the water well and back and that the village would benefit from an affordable water supply system that would eliminate the hourly daily walk.  The EWB chapter then returned back to the US, reviewed all the data they collected, and designed a gravity fed water supply system that provided water faucet to each hut. 

Several months later, EWB returned to the village to build the gravity fed water supply system.   The gravity fed system was simple, affordable, reliable, easy to maintain, and provided everyone water.  EWB returned home knowing the water system was a complete success!  However, when the EWB chapter returned to the village a year later for post-implementation survey trip they were surprised to see that each and every water faucet was broken.  How could this be? Where in their design did they go wrong? Baffled, EWB continued with their post work surveys though this time meet with the women villagers separately than the male villagers - something EWB had not done in their previous surveys.  It was in this survey that EWB learned that collecting water was how the women socialized with each other.  EWB’s design of bringing a water faucet to each hut unknowingly eliminated this very important social ritual. The women collectively decided to break the faucets.  It was the “Aha! Moment” - when the EWB chapter began to comprehend a perfect design becomes irrelevant when it’s in conflict with the needs of the people it is intended to help - the basis of Design Thinking.

As an Engineer, I have studied how to read a specification on a request or problem, digest it, and then develop a solution built to specification.   But as a volunteer with EWB, I have learned the importance of incorporating “design thinking” or what we commonly refer to as the “human factor” into my designs.  How to watch for human behaviors outside what is written on the specification paper and it has made me become a better engineer.

So what become of the village and the water supply project? The story ends with the EWB chapter changing the water supply design, removing the water faucets and  incorporating a water tank in middle of the village for which the women could still meet.  A final successful design.