Alberto Martinetti and Nikola Petrová from the Humanitarian Engineering group at the DPM department participated from October 2022 to March 2023, in the Tech for Sustainability Challenge hosted by Siemens. The aim of this campaign was to solve real-world sustainability challenges and our future along with Siemens.
From 152 ideas in 7 categories, Alberto and Nikola won the first prize (5000 ΕUR) in their category „Educating for Sustainability“ with their course 'Introduction to Humanitarian Engineering', and on the 10th of March they presented their idea in front of top management of Siemens (including Peter Koerte, Chief Technology & Strategy Officer in Siemens, or Stefanie Frank, Head of Strategy in Siemens Digital Industry).
Introduction to Humanitarian Engineering course is a Master's course that will be offered in quartile 2B. In this course, students will be using the concept of challenge-based learning and work on a challenge related to UN SDG 2: Zero Hunger by developing solutions for a portable learning environment for sustainable agriculture in low-income communities.
Stephanie Frank said on her LinkedIn the following: “Having lived quite some time in South Africa in my life - I know how important education is to develop a country and a region. Therefore I am really thrilled that Nikola Petrová and Alberto Martinetti from the University of Twente got the first prize in the Tech for Sustainability “Education for Sustainability” challenge for AGRIBOX. In that humanitarian engineering project, the combination of education with a heat transfer simulation and our Simcenter Software is the right place to start.”
As the next steps, the Humanitarian Engineering group will be further developing the Agribox using software provided by Siemens and jointly developing humanitarian engineering educational materials.
To read more about the Tec for Sustainability Campaign, visit https://ecosystem.siemens.com/techforsustainability/campaign/overview where you can also rewatch their final pitch (min 00.44).
Besides, Introduction to Humanitarian Engineering course also received attention from ECIU when receiving a grant from the ECIU CBL call for the proposal titled: The future of assessment: Comparative judgment in the context of humanitarian engineering.
Additional information:
Number of ideas: 152
Number of categories: 7 (Ecodesign for motion control systems, Re-think performance engineering for circular products, Swarm Behaviour on the Grid, Financing Growth Sustainably, Educating for Sustainability, Enable metro reight transport, Tokenize the energy transition)
