Engineering News - Spring 2008

Engineers Without Borders has changed the lives of countless people in remote areas of the world, but it has also changed the lives of students at Columbia SEAS. Three students working on EWB's micro-hydroelectric project for Purnaguma, India, have found that being involved with this project has changed their career direction.

Nimit Mehta (left in the photo above) and Craig Danton (standing next to Nimit) started working with EWB as first-year students, focusing on tsunami relief. They then turned their attention to other projects in the area and made contact with Gram Vikas, a renowned non-governmental organization (NGO) in India.

Last summer, Craig, Nimit and Ramya Pratiwadi (far right in the photo above) traveled to India to assess the feasibility of a micro-hydroelectric project. They visited several villages to test water quality and water flow to determine if it would be possible to

generate power from the streams. They found all the right conditions in the small village of Purnaguma in the East Indian state of Orissa. The village contains 355 households and everyone lives below the poverty line.

“The poverty there is incredible,” says Nimit. “There are so many people lacking water and clothing.” By bringing their project, dubbed “Power to the People,” to Purnaguma, Columbia's EWB volunteers are confident that providing electricity to the village will help them attain a better standard of living. The process from concept to completion will take a year. According to their plan, Columbia EWB is responsible for designing and funding the project. Craig, Nimit and Ramya enlisted the help of students from Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh province, and from Gram Vikas, which agreed to mobilize the villagers to provide the logistics and the labor, along with the Hyderabad students.

So far, Columbia's EWB Purnaguma Project has won $25,000 in funding grants—$10,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency and $15,000 from Environmental Resource Management, the worldwide environmental consulting company. The group also was selected as a finalist for the JPMorgan Good Venture Competition and was recently recognized by President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative Meeting in New Orleans, LA.

The project at Purnaguma will follow a number of successful similar projects. “There are clusters of micro-hydro power projects now under construction in India,” says Craig. “This is green construction so that, when the micro-hydroelectric power plant is in place in Purnaguma, it will be renewable, sustainable, and free of a carbon footprint.” Craig explains that, by diverting water from an existing stream, through a penstock tube, the kinetic energy of the water flow will spin a turbine in a power station, producing 10-15 kilowatts of electricity, enough to provide lighting and to power other important facilities. The students see the electricity as a source of power to provide light to read, electricity to run grain mills and seed grinders, and to power a health center or water purification system. Columbia EWB will be sending four more students to complete the project in June and, declares Ramya, “Purnaguma will have electricity by this summer.”

While it is easy to see how the EWB project will change the lives of Purnaguma villagers, it is only in speaking to the students that it becomes clear that Columbia and Engineers Without Borders has changed their lives. Craig, a junior majoring in electrical engineering who was born in England and came to the U.S. when he was 13, thought he would go into finance or traditional electrical engineering. “I got involved in Engineers Without Borders in freshman year and knew I wanted to work in energy and sustainability. I became fascinated in the areas where the engineering disciplines meet, where earth and environmental engineering met mechanical and electrical engineering,” he said. Craig is currently doing research with Professor Vijay Modi of the Department of Mechanical Engineering for a power grid structure in Uganda and Kenya. “I can tap all the resources of Columbia to work on these problems,” he said.

While visiting a nearby village with a micro-hydro electric power system in place, Craig found the generator was broken and so examined the generator and turbine and used a voltmeter to help find the source of the problem.

Nimit, also a junior majoring in electrical engineering, came to Columbia with no definite plan in mind. “I thought biomedical engineering would be good, but then I learned I hated biology,” he said. “I am now taking the opportunity to think and to talk to people. I don't want to miss out on anything. I spent the first semester of my junior year studying engineering in Durban, South Africa at the University of Kwazulu-Natal on a social research project similar to what we did in the villages of India last summer.”

Ramya, a junior from Monmouth, NJ, came to Columbia SEAS thinking she would major in chemical engineering. “As a freshman, I took Professor (Upmanu) Lall's course and I was totally changed.” Ramya is currently working on carbon capture research with Assistant Professor Alissa Ah-Hyung Park of the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering. “All my interests are now in sustainable energy. I'm so happy to be in EEE at Columbia,” she said.

Engineers Without Borders Brings “Power to the People”

Engineers Without Borders
Brings “Power to the People”