About a week ago we went on a trip to visit and interview Amanda Setiawan, President of the NYU Chapter of Engineers Without Borders. Engineers Without Borders (EWB) is a nonprofit organization whose main goal is to help supply other less established towns outside the U.S. with the technology they need. Rather than just gifting the technology, their goal is to teach the local people how to maintain it as well. The way that they do this is by sending engineers to the places that request help, and having them instruct the local people on how to build the item they need, rather than doing it themselves. This helps move the overall tech level of the area forward as well, because along the way, the locals learn all about the technology going into the project and how to use it in other ways that may benefit them as well.

Every chapter of EWB has a different project and the project that NYU is working on is making a solar powered water pump for Gambia. Amanda herself just got back from a month long visit with a few of her fellow engineers helping to complete this project. They are now working on building a Heath Center there as well. Besides having a foreign project every chapter also has a local one. The NYU chapters local project is helping to rebuild houses in Staten Island, particularly ones that were damaged during Hurricane Sandy. Every weekend they hold clean up sessions where anybody who wants to can come and help the engineers there build. The last thing we discussed with Amanda was how we could help. We asked when the next one was going to take place and if we could go. She said as long as we were willing to work, they would be happy to have the help. She also explained how, if we wanted, we could come to the NYU office and help them with their project in Gambia. Overall, the interview with Amanda went very smoothly and we learned way more than expected.