Why the Developing World Needs Mechanical Design

Abstract

The dramatic and often unjust difference between life in the developed versus developing parts of the world is striking. For example, roughly 3 billion people still burn biomass to cook their meals; more people in the world have a mobile phone than have a toilet; Dallas Cowboy Stadium (AT&T stadium) requires three times the electrical power than the entire country of Liberia can produce; and a 73 s shower (using an EPA approved low-flow shower head) uses all of the daily clean water available per person in Rwanda. These conditions and others have given rise to an interesting area of design and research that spans multiple engineering disciplines and is called Engineering for Global Development (EGD). Work in this area is also often referred to as design for the developing world, design for development, and humanitarian engineering.