One Village Philippines Project [Gawad Kalinga] / Global TIES

Check out this video created by UC San Diego engineering students who are using their skills to improves lives in a village in the Philippines. Learn more about Global TIES at UC San Diego.

Flying School Bus: Visions of the Future

See Zach Salin holding his flying school bus here.

A flying school bus isn't on the current list of Global TIES projects, but according to Zach Salin's whimsical drawing from the Jacobs School booth at UC San Diego Founders' Day, 50 years from now, that's what Jacobs School undergrads might be working on.

I can only assume the bus is running on hydrogen extracted from water via a process that requires very little or no energy to generate and store the hydrogen. 

Considering humanitarian engineering project of the future is a fun, mind-bending exercise. Anyone else have ideas of what Global TIES students will be working on in 50 years? Leave a comment or email ideas to me at: dbkane AT ucsd DOT edu

TIES Gets UC San Diego on Presidential Community Service Honor Roll

The Jacobs School's Teams in Engineering Service (TIES) played an important role in getting UC San Diego on the 2009 President's Community Service Honor Roll with distinction.

TIES is an innovative academic program that offers partnerships between engineering students and non-profit organizations in the local community leading them to identify, address and solve engineering problems.

TIES is modeled after the EPICS Program at Purdue University, a program originating in the mid-90s, which has proven to be enormously successful in its efforts to provide its engineering students with the opportunity to work in the real world.

The best way to start to understand TIES is to browse the list of current TIES projects.

Read the full story by Christine Clark here.

Update Monday June 7: The San Diego Union Tribune covered the story.

Undergrads on Solar Power Demonstration Project in Kenya: finalists in national competition

Congratulations to the Global TIES team "Kenya Solar Power." The team, which is building a prototype for a solar electric installation for a computer training center in Mbita, Kenya, won a spot as a finalist in the National Idea to Product Competition for Social Entrepreneurship.

Senior, Priya Raval wrote the proposal. Clarke Guest is the faculty advisor and Zach Salin is the TA.

We'll be following this story and this worthy project.

UCSD Global TIES Haiti Earthquake Relief Campaign

Below is an excerpt of an open letter from Mandy Bratton, Ph.D. Director, Global TIES at the Jacobs School.

I know that many of you have been moved, as I have, by the stories and images emerging from Haiti in the wake of last week’s devastating earthquake. We all want to do something to help. Rest assured that Global TIES intends to help Haiti rebuild itself, once it is safe and appropriate for us to be on the
ground.

In the meantime, the best way to help is through financial contributions. Immediate medical aid is urgently needed to stem the death toll from this disaster. To this end, Global TIES has teamed up with Partners in Health, a non-governmental organization co-founded by Dr. Paul Farmer that has been providing healthcare in Haiti for the past 25 years. (To learn more about Dr. Farmer and his groundbreaking work, read “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder.)

Global TIES has created a fund-raising page on the Partners in Health web site: http://act.pih.org/page/outreach/view/haitiearthquake/ucsdglobalties.

Please join me in giving what you can via this web site. Partners in Health has agreed to track contributions made from UC San Diego via this site, so if you are part of the UC San Diego community, please include your UCSD email address on your donation form. All proceeds will go to Partners in Health.

http://act.pih.org/page/outreach/view/haitiearthquake/ucsdglobalties

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