A Brief History
EWB-USA was created in April 2000 when a Professor of Civil Engineering at the University o
f Colorado at Boulder was asked to help build a water delivery system for a village in San Pablo, Belize. The village had no electricity, running water or sanitation. During the day, when the adult population was working on nearby plantations, their children carried drinking and irrigation water to the village from a nearby river.
The Professor, after seeing this, went back to the University of Colorado and gathered together a group of students and a professional engineer. The newly created team then started designing a sustainable solution to this water and sanitation problem.With one year of designing, planning and a total budget of $14,000 the team went back to San Pablo and implemented their design.
With the completion of the first project, a seed was planted and a wonderful organization started to grow. Since then, EWB has grown to more then 70 student and professional chapters that each complete projects like the one mentioned above each year.
For a more detailed history of EWB-USA go to the national chapter’s home page.
Our Mission Statement
Engineers Without Borders is a non-profit organization that partners with disadvantaged communities to improve their quality of life through implementation of environmentally and economically sustainable engineering projects, while developing internationally responsible engineering students.
Members
Engineers Without Borders has been a University of Maryland, College Park, SGA-recognized student group since the Spring of 2004. If you are interested in joining the group or becoming more involved, please contact an executive board member (or project lead if you are interested in a specific project), or just show up to meetings!
General body meetings are held once a semester, to give a brief overview of all of our projects and organization updates. The executive board meets weekly and uses the email listserv to post opportunities for further involvement. You may view the tasks of each member of the executive board by viewing our Constitution. Individual project meetings are organized separately and members are encouraged to contact project leaders directly or check the website for meeting times if they are interested in working on a project.