Engineers without Borders at UIUC
- Webmaster of the Executive Board: Spring 2008 to Fall 2008
- Maharashtra Project Member: Fall 2007 to Spring 2009
- Location: UIUC Engineering Campus, Urbana, Illinois
- More Info: EWB-UIUC Website
Engineers without Borders (EWB) exposed me to some of the greatest student successes in changing the world right from campus. I was initially involved in a project, and then joined the Executive Board for a year.
My electrical engineering interests led me to participate in the Maharashtra project soon after entering the university. I stayed involved through various phases of the project as goals changed over the semesters. When I first joined in Fall 2007, we were building a DC-to-DC converter for a wind-powered system in Karnataka, India. The next phase was to design and build battery discharge limiters for use in Haiti, which I helped with during Spring 2008 and Fall 2008. In Spring 2009 the battery discharge limiter circuit was formally documented and soldered together.
Perhaps more interesting was my experience as the Webmaster of the EWB Executive Board for the year 2008. I learned considerably about working in harmony with the other enterprising board members, while serving the needs of the organization as a whole by communicating with project leads as well. In addition to overhauling the EWB-UIUC website to be more usable without loss of data, I also had managerial tasks not too typical for a Webmaster. Most notably, I took some initiatives when EWB-UIUC organized the Great Lakes Regional Conference. Another key aspect of leadership that I developed during and well after my term as Webmaster was transitional leadership, as I wanted future leaders of EWB to reap the most fruits from my website-revamping efforts that year.