INSPIRE by EWB UNSW: Recent Episodes
EWB UNSW
The INSPIRE Series is a platform where we interview inspirational professionals to discuss their learnings and journey. We predominantly focus on humanitarian/engineering fields but may delve into other topics in search of a more holistic view. Every episode is concluded with an interactive activity or discussion to get you involved and thinking.
🌱Meet our Inspire podcast guest - ✨Dr Sasha Vassar✨
0:05 | Acknowledgement of Country
0:18 | Introduction
0:44 | Undergraduate and Educational Experience
10:30 | Academia Experience 20:31 | EWB Program and PhD
29:30 | Accessibility in Design
40:15 | Accessibility in Gaming
53:40 | Conclusion
Dr Sasha Vassar is currently a full time lecturer in the UNSW School of Computer Science and Engineering. In addition to being an experienced computer scientist, she holds a doctorate in Education and is passionate about teaching, computer science and designing for accessibility in engineering.
—— 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐄𝐖𝐁 𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐖 ——
Engineers Without Borders (EWB) UNSW is the UNSW chapter of the wider EWB community organization. We are a group of student volunteers who use our engineering knowledge, resources, and passion towards the goal of creating change through humanitarian engineering. We work towards this mission through running school workshops to inspire the next generation of engineers, promoting human-centred design and sustainability initiatives to students at UNSW, and supporting development programs both locally and overseas. 🌲
—— 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐔𝐬 ——
Email: unsw@ewb.org.au Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ewbunswchapter/
🌱Meet our Inspire podcast guest - ✨Eleanor Earl!✨
0:05 | Acknowledgement of Country
0:18 | Introduction
1:30 | Undergraduate Experience
10:47 | Industry Experience
17:31 | PhD and Academia Experience
25:17 | Audience Questions
32:58 | Conclusion
Eleanor is a current UNSW PhD candidate studying flood resilience in the Pacific Islands - focusing on the role of nature based solutions for surface water flood management in Fiji. As senior consultant at ARUP and project leader at The Resilience Shift, she has previously worked on a diverse range of major projects, including working on one of the first major Sustainable Urban Systems (SUDS) schemes in Hong Kong as well as various urban water projects across East and South-East Asia.
🌱Meet our second Inspire podcast guest of the year - ✨Ian Cunningham!✨
Ian has worked and researched at the social-technical interface for 🧠 15+ years 🧠 in the community development and engineering sectors - predominantly in the field of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) 💦. He’s interested in how program and project design can best honour and progress 🌏 community-centric 🌏 aspirations.
If you have any other questions for Ian, feel free to submit them here: https://forms.gle/QJcRTUCegVSkbtvz5
🌱 Meet EWB UNSW's first INSPIRE podcast guest of the year - ✨Dr Fiona Johnson!✨
Fiona has over 20+ years of experience in hydrology working as a consultant, for government and in academia🧠. Associate Professor Johnson’s areas of research and teaching focus on statistical hydrology, particularly concerning flooding and extreme events and the use of global climate models for climate change assessments of water resources systems💦
She has a particular interest in solutions to climate and hydrological challenges faced by communities in the Global South and is currently undertaking research projects in Tanzania, Nepal, the Pacific and Australia🌏
If you have any other questions for Dr Fiona, feel free to submit them here: 🌟 https://forms.gle/2fR7yEoesYuryPk46 🌟
This episode, we spoke to Melanie De Gioia - the founder and director of Ramaley Media and nothing short of a STEM star.
Mel works on podcasts, projects and hackathons to instil the drive for STEM in everyone – kindy through to adults. Listen in as she explores future prospects of the STEM space, shares advice for aligning career with purpose and shares her own experiences to inspire you to take a seat at the STEM table.
To keep the conversation going, tune into her podcasts below:
- Engineering Heroes: https://engineeringheroes.com.au/
- Ramaley Media Podcasts: https://ramaley.media/our-network/
This episode, Dr. Andrew Dansie, Senior Lecturer in Humanitarian Engineering at UNSW joined us again to discuss his past involvement on the ground with projects overseas and tell us UNSW students about UNSW's new humanitarian engineering minor.
This episode we chatted with Dr. Beena Ahmed, senior lecturer at UNSW's School of Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications and founder of Say66.
A leading professional and academic at the crossroads of health and technology, Dr Beena Ahmed applies machine learning algorithms on acoustic and phonetic data to develop feedback driven speech therapy. Beena shared with us the wide range of possibilities for speech recognition algorithms. These algorithms may be used to detect early signs of dementia, track mental stress and guide relaxation.
Listen to this episode to learn more about what it's like to develop technologies that progress health for the world.
Beena's research: https://www.unsw.edu.au/engineering/our-people/beena-ahmed
More about EWB UNSW: https://www.facebook.com/ewbunswchapter
EWB INSPIRE is back! In collaboration with AIAA UNSW, we speak to Daniel Faber, CEO of OrbitFab.
A serial entrepreneur leading a number of startups in Silicon Valley, Daniel Faber has leveraged his experience in a wide range of industry sectors to bring together teams and build companies in the emerging field of in-space operations. Listen to our new episode to hear Daniel's advice to current students and his takes on the future of space exploration and the aerospace industry.
In our first episode for 2021, meet our incoming Projects team, hear about who they are and their goals for the year ahead.
Welcome to our final episode of INSPIRE by EWB UNSW for the 2020 season, I hope you have enjoyed listening and leant something from our amazing guests. This episode we are joined by Jacky Cai a friend of our chapter, who along with Komatsu organised a volunteering trip to northern NSW to bring engineers into the classrooms of their local schools. This is an initiative we aim to run yearly, but working with Jacky on this project helped us to be involved in more volunteering trips and reach more students in 2019! Finally, we conclude our season by discussing our learnings.
Stay tuned for the 2021 season!
This week we were joined by Dr Scott Daniel senior lecturer in humanitarian engineering at UTS. Diving into his knowledge of public speaking, science, volunteering and just a little geography. So you are bound to learn something new! This is following our investigation into off-grid power systems, with knowledge they may come in handy when trying to reduce your power usage or even camping.
This episode we get to know the new leadership team for the next stage of the EWB UNSW chapter, discuss some of our experiences in EWB so far and find out how you can get involved in the coming year. Following this, we dive into our investigation of water purification with investigations of interest, so dont miss out.
This week we are joined by Darcy Small, the co-founder of a coffee-based startup called Kua. We’ll talk about the startup space, waste management and of course coffee! Our team on ‘Investigations of interest,’ will cover the paper centrifuge and its importance as a humanitarian device.
This week we are joined by Dr Andrew Dansie, senior lecturer in the field of humanitarian engineering. We focus on leadership skills, teaching and what it means to pursue a career in humanitarian engineering. Additionally, on our recurring segment 'investigations of interest', we will discuss the impact of the fast fashion industry and provide insight into its trends.
Enjoy!
Shona Fitzgerald zoomed in to chat with us about her career and experiences in the water and sanitation sector, working for Sydney Water, Engineers Without Borders and World Bank. This is followed by our new segment, Discussions of Interest, where we talk about the Monoblock Chair, arguably one of the most popular chairs in Australia, which you will have seen but never thought twice about!