Humanitarian Engineering Creating Technologies That Help People. Humanitarian Engineering Creating Technologies That Help People. Humanitarian Engineering Creating Technologies That Help People

Humanitarian Engineering
Creating Technologies That Help People
Kevin M. Passino

Humanitarian Engineering:
Creating Technologies That Help People
Kevin M. Passino
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
The Ohio State University
2nd
Edition
Bede Publishing, Columbus, Ohio, 2015
Cover photo: By the author, March 2005, Yuscaran, Honduras, C.A.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Passino, Kevin M.
Humanitarian Engineering: Creating Technologies That Help People
Edition 2
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-10: 0692394222
ISBN-13: 978-0-692-39422-9
1. Engineering. 2. Humanitarianism. 3. Poverty
c 2015 by Kevin M. Passino. All rights reserved.
Bede Publishing, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America
ISBN-10: 0692394222
ISBN-13: 978-0-692-39422-9
Terms of Use: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
It is attributed to Kevin M. Passino.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode
MATLAB and Simulink are trademarks of MathWorks.
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limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose are disclaimed. In no
event shall the author be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary or consequential damages
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In memory of my father, Stan Passino (1933-2013),
my role model for taking action to promote social justice.
To my mother, Mary Dolores Passino, the reason I am an engineer.
Stan Passino, bricklayer, circa 1956, doing volunteer work (laying block).

If you want to help fix the mess,
you have to be a part of the mess,
and learn to love the mess.
Unknown origin

Preface
Ending poverty and promoting human development, in a socially inclusive and
environmentally sustainable manner, is the greatest challenge of our era. This
book examines the role of engineering in humanity’s quest to meet this challenge.
Social justice is used to define broad goals, including human dignity, equal rights
and social inclusion, along with environmental justice. Development strategies
move us from current conditions of underdevelopment to social justice, and in-
clude approaches from development economics, health, education, and business.
Engineering for sustainable community development, here via “participatory
development,” provides an approach for engineers to cooperatively work with
people on location to identify needs and resources, develop technology solutions,
and assess impact.
Definitions and Focus
The following definitions help explain the focus of this book:
• “Technology” is often thought of as “a tool that extends human capabil-
ity” (e.g. from hammers, to bridges, to the internet). The New Oxford
American Dictionary defines technology as “the application of scientific
knowledge for practical purposes.” Encyclopedia Britannica defines tech-
nology as “the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of
human life.” “Technologies are developed and applied so that we can do
things not otherwise possible, or so that we can do them cheaper, faster,
and easier” (Volti, 2006).
• “Engineering” can be defined as “the use of science and mathematics to
invent, create, design, develop, improve, modify, or apply technologies.” Of
course, engineering also focuses on the creation of “processes,” but often
it has a focus on technology for processes, such as computer automation
for manufacturing.
• “Humanitarian” has been defined as being “concerned with or seeking
to promote human welfare” (New Oxford American Dictionary), which

Preface vii
is quite a bit broader than typical interpretations of this word in that
it applies to long-term problems (not just natural disasters) everywhere,
from individuals and community to international sites. Here, we define
the meaning of “human welfare” via social justice.
• “Social justice” can be defined as “standards for, and a view on how to
promote, human dignity, rights, fulfillment for all of humanity.” Central to
social justice are: (i) dignity, rights, and fulfillment of the human person;
and (ii) the structure and systems that influence, support, or help humans
achieve fulfillment (well-being, welfare, etc.) such as family, work, eco-
nomics, politics, environment, and peace. In other words, human rights,
fairness, equality, and helping each other are key issues in social justice.
• “Humanitarian engineering” is “creating technologies that help people”
(the book title/subtitle, and notice that the title and subtitle help define
Humanitarian
engineering is the
creation of
technologies that
help people.
each other so that there is an emphasis on helping people in significant
need). The term “create” is used as shorthand for the other ways tech-
nologies are introduced by engineers (e.g., use of off-the-shelf technologies
where the only “creation” is matching a solution to a problem, or where ex-
isting technologies are modified for a specific context and where there is an
increased element of creativity compared to direct but creative use of off-
the-shelf technologies). Another good definition of humanitarian engineer-
ing is “creating technology to promote social justice.” An alternative to
“humanitarian engineering” is “development engineering;” however, this
term would normally imply a more limited scope (e.g., not considering
disaster response) and many find that over-use of the term “development”
is problematic and confusing (e.g., in engineering, “development” almost
always refers to “technology development,” and so “development engi-
neering” would imply that someone is “engineering a better technology
development process,” which is indeed a focus in some disciplines of engi-
neering that have nothing to do with humanitarian engineering).
• “Development” in this book means either human development (not the
development of a baby into an adult) or economic development, or both.
Human development typically includes both intellectual and physical de-
velopment, often economic development, and for some, also spiritual devel-
opment (but individuals are the authorities on what development means
to them). Economic development generally means more people earning
more money. The focus of this book is more on human rather than eco-
nomic development. Basic issues in human development (e.g., education
and health) will generally affect economic development; however, this book
does not focus heavily on business formation in the developing world, or
job creation, explicitly, though that may be the result of some of the issues
that are discussed (e.g., participatory social business).
• “Sustainable community development” is the focus of a significant por-
tion of the field of humanitarian engineering,a nd indeed “Engineering for

Preface viii
Sustainable Development” would be a good title for this book. “Sustain-
ability” and “sustainable” in this book will always pertain to the environ-
ment or some part of it like a specific ecosystem or local natural resource.
The term “sustainability” in this book is always kept consistent with the
definition of “sustainable development” by the Brundtland Commission
that is given in Section 1.3 and work in the areas of sustainability, the
environment, and the general field of sustainable development. In some
work, the term “sustainable” is used to describe (i) ruggedness, reliability,
and robustness that ensure long-term failure-free technology operation;
(ii) long-term financial support or viability; (iii) long-term government,
organizational, institutional and/or community support; or (iv) long-term
operation and maintenance of technology solutions. Here, these other con-
notations of the word “sustainable” are avoided and the appropriate and
more descriptive terms indicated in this list, (i)-(iv), are used. This way,
confusion about what type of sustainability is being discussed is avoided,
particularly, when only one “sub-type” is relevant in the discussion or
when environmental sustainability is not being considered at all. More
importantly, by keeping terms distinct, significant conflicts between the
ideas in (i)-(v) and ecological sustainability are avoided (e.g., financial
viability can have significant conflicts with ecological considerations as is
often the case in the developed or developing world, or when long-term
operation implies long-term high rates of pollution). Clearly, haphazard
use of the term “sustainable” is often problematic, and indeed may not
even promote understanding of ecological sustainability.
The key ideas discussed in this book are condensed into two pages, “The 10
Principles of Humanitarian Engineering,” at the end of the book on page 670.
The objective of this book is to define the challenges of development, the
goal of social justice, and then to provide a framework for creating, modify-
ing, and using existing technologies for development, and promotion of social
justice. Specific technologies are discussed only to provide concrete examples;
there is no intent here to provide an exhaustive “handbook” or “field guide”
for “humanitarian technology” or more specifically, “appropriate technology”
(sometimes, these are called “development technology” if the focus is not, for
instance, disaster response). I have confidence in the creativity of engineers,
more generally, people’s ingenuity. Given challenges, goals, methodology, and
constraints, individuals can create technologies that fulfill humanitarian needs
today and in the future. A book focused on today’s technologies would soon be
out of date.
The Important Role of Engineers in Sustainable
Development
Systems of thought on social justice call out the importance of technology,
stress its moral use (e.g., in issues connected to biotechnology, the environ-

Preface ix
ment, or weapons technology), and would then acknowledge the importance of
what engineers do, and that they do it with a deep sense of fairness both in how
they create technology and in the design of technology that promotes justice.
Amartya Sen, a Nobel-Laureate economist, whose perspectives on social justice
and development will be discussed in this book, said:
“The gap between understanding how something would work and
making it actually work can be quite a substantial one, and some
of the major problems of technological advance in developing coun-
tries seem to arise from difficulties in the translation of science into
technology” (Sen, 1975).
This is a strong and authoritative endorsement of the value of engineering in
development as engineers are the translators of science into technology. Sup-
porting this, in (Volti, 2006) (p. 65), Volti says: “A great deal of scientific
information finds its way into technological practice through the education of
engineers.” Next, it has been noted that “technological advance has been the
greatest single source of economic growth” (Volti, 2006), which is also supported
by arguments in (Easterly, 2014; Acemoglu, 2009). Also, consider that Jeffrey
Sachs says (Sachs, 2006): “We glimpse the pivotal roles that science and tech-
nology play in the development process” and in studying the history of economic
development he says “Technology has been the main force behind the long-term
increases in income in the rich world” and goes on to say that all countries,
including developing ones today, can have “a reasonable hope of reaping the
benefits of technological advance” and quotes John Maynard Keynes as concur-
ring with this point (considered to be the most influential economist of the 20th
century). Yet, the diffusion of technological innovations “often widens the so-
cioeconomic gap between the higher- and lower-socioeconomic status segments”
(p. 130, (Rogers, 2003)) as power, wealth, and information is in the hands of the
wealthy who can then gain the benefits of technological innovation. Humanitar-
ian engineering seeks to spread technological innovations to lower socioeconomic
classes in the world to promote human and economic sustainable development.
Indeed, for the lower socioeconomic classes, poverty is often coincident with
problems of lack of clean water, inadequate sanitation, food insecurity, no
Poverty is coincident
with problems that
have technological
solutions that
engineers can help
with.
available electricity, inadequate shelter, etc. Each of these presents technolog-
ical challenges that various disciplines of engineering are well-prepared to deal
with: water filtration, sanitation systems, agriculture, energy technology, archi-
tecture, etc. Engineers are needed to create practical and sustainable solutions
for these development challenges, that is, to help with sustainable development.
There are thousands of engineers graduating every year from universities
around the world, and many more practicing in the “engineering enterprise”
(entrepreneurs, industry, government, etc.). The field of humanitarian engineer-
ing hopes it can harness the talent of the engineering community and focus it on
poverty, sustainable development, and the promotion of social justice. Clearly,
if individuals in the profession of engineering work together, we can do much
more than if we work separately. Indeed, currently and in the past, there have
been many engineers involved in successful humanitarian work (even if while

Preface x
working they do not identify themselves as such like a medical doctor often
does by wearing their white coat or stethoscope). This book seeks to synthesize
the past and current work in humanitarian engineering, at least to some extent
(a full history is not an aim of this book), and make some advancements in
how to think about humanitarian engineering (e.g., via mathematical modeling,
dynamical systems, feedback control, and computational analysis approaches).
Book Organization and Themes
To picture the organization of this book, consider Figure 1. Chapter 1, entitled
“Poverty, Sustainability, and Culture,” and shown on top left of the diagram,
defines challenges, and explores the role of the engineer in humanitarianism.
Chapter 2, “Social Justice,” shown on the bottom left of the diagram, specifies
local and global goals for humanitarian engineering. Chapter 3, “Development
Strategies,” shown in the center, provides general methods to move current con-
ditions (e.g., economic, health, and education) to improved conditions so that
social justice goals are met. Development strategy choice and implementation,
which depend on conditions and goals and may need to be dynamically adjusted,
and are crucial to “convergence” of the development process, where convergence
can be defined, for instance, by reduction of inequalities (e.g., economic or par-
ticipatory), so that social justice is promoted. Chapter 4, “Engineering for
Sustainable Community Development,” shown on the right side, uses the con-
tent of all the previous chapters and, via local, “bottom-up,” and “participatory
development,” addresses community-identified needs via community/engineering
cooperative creation of sustainable technological solutions.
Chapter 2
Social Justice
(Goals)
Chapter 1
Poverty, Sustainability,
Culture
(Challenges)
Chapter 4
Engineering for
Sustainable Community
Development
Chapter 3
Development
Strategies
Figure 1: Book organization.
You will see that modeling, dynamics, feedback control, optimization, and
Central themes
include modeling,
dynamics, feedback,
and cooperation.
cooperation are underlying themes of this book (these are my own areas of ex-
pertise). In Chapter 1, models, dynamics, and feedback control for a financial
advisor for a low-income person are developed and analyzed. In Chapter 2,
wealth distribution policies, and democracy, for a community are developed;

Preface xi
these are distributed feedback and optimization methods that achieve types of
cooperation. In Chapter 3, modeling and analysis of poverty traps, technol-
ogy diffusion, and capital investment are studied, and this includes feedback
control for spending and capital investment along with wealth distribution and
democracy at the higher level. In Chapter 4, modeling and analysis of “so-
ciotechnological dynamical systems” are studied and, in particular, cooperation
for management of common pool resources in the form of technologies is studied
using a distributed feedback control method. Moreover, modeling and analysis
of how technologies affect sustainable community development are studied.
The main technical and engineering content in this book are: (i) these stud-
ies of models, dynamics, and mathematical or computational analysis, and (ii)
much of the material in Chapter 4, from “participatory technology develop-
ment,” to humanitarian technology (e.g., appropriate technology), and human-
itarian science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education
(e.g., creating low-cost experiments for project-based learning).
Multidisciplinary Approach
Humanitarian engineering is highly multidisciplinary. It requires a broader foun-
dation of knowledge than engineering in general. Like engineering, it includes
all the physical sciences (e.g., physics and chemistry), life sciences (e.g., biol-
ogy), and mathematics/statistics; however, it also includes all areas of social
science. Compared to the traditional engineer, a good humanitarian engineer
needs to know more about people, and in particular social human groups of all
sizes, and how they interact. Humanitarian engineers need to know how to col-
laborate with diverse groups, where diversity means inclusion of experts outside
engineering, members of a community, both genders, and other cultures/races.
Most humanitarian work gets done “on the back of relationships” between peo-
ple, and large structural problems of social justice require large diverse groups
of people working together for their solution.
Driven by both technical and social needs, this book incorporates elements
of the following:
• Engineering disciplines: Humanitarian engineering can fit into any engi-
neering discipline and this book fits all these. At The Ohio State Univer-
sity (OSU), where I am employed, the engineering disciplines are civil, en-
vironmental, electrical, computer engineering, computer science, biomedi-
cal, mechanical and aerospace, chemical-biomolecular, agricultural, indus-
trial, materials science and engineering, and architecture.
• Mathematics and statistics: The need for mathematics and statistics is as
great in humanitarian engineering as for any engineering discipline. Here,
mathematical modeling (e.g., via nonlinear discrete time equations or or-
dinary differential equations) is used to represent a range of dynamical
systems and standard analysis concepts are employed (e.g., equilibria, sta-
bility, sensitivity analysis, and optimization). Also, in our computational

Preface xii
analysis via Monte Carlo simulations we use simple ideas from statistics.
• Social sciences: Each of the social sciences has a role in this book:
Humanitarian
engineering
demands a
multidisciplinary
approach.
– Economics and Political Science: Development economics, quantita-
tive development economics, governments’ role, democracy, political
philosophy, and technology policy.
– Social Work: US and international, community theory and change.
– Psychology: Counseling psychology and social psychology.
– Sociology: Diffusion of innovations, technological change in society,
and rural sociology.
– Anthropology: Culture.
• Philosophy, ethics, and religion: Social justice, religious and secular, and
engineering ethics.
• Education: International/comparative education, cross-cultural STEM ed-
ucation, and assessment.
• Health: Global public health.
• Environment: Pollution, climate change, and sustainability.
• Business: Social entrepreneurship and social business.
Subjects above that are rarely, if ever, found in engineering books are religion
and the social sciences. Typically, engineering education only includes such sub-
jects as elective courses in “general education” requirements; hence, a particular
engineering student may not see any of the social science, philosophy, religion,
education, health/environment, or business subjects unless they choose to. The
incorporation of the above diversity of topics, and particularly the social sci-
ences, presents a significant challenge for engineering education, in particular,
as the curriculum for supporting humanitarian engineering education expands
along these lines.
Moreover, I feel that the inclusion of a number of the above topics represents
a trend in engineering. People’s lives are increasingly coupled with technology
and this brings engineering closer and closer to being a “direct contact profes-
sion” (see Section 4.1.1). As this happens, and considering the intrinsic role
of technology in extending human capability, it is inevitable that engineering
will become a “helping profession” like social work, psychology, education, and
healthcare. It may be only one discipline within engineering takes this role (e.g.,
humanitarian engineering), but it may be that elements of humanitarian engi-
neering are added to each engineering discipline. Regardless, if engineering is at
least in part moving in this direction we must learn from the professional helpers
(e.g., social workers); this is why a number of the above topics are integrated
into the treatment in this book.
This multidisciplinary educational philosophy fits what I call the “psychol-
ogy of the typical humanitarian engineer.” I have found that people involved in

Preface xiii
humanitarian engineering seem to be “split brain,” with the left side holding
their analytical engineering skills and the right (social) side reaching out with
a strong desire to help people in a tangible and compassionate way (I know the
split brain idea is over/mis-used, including here). This book seeks to develop
analytical engineering skills that can appropriately ride on the back of com-
passion to create effective technologies that help people. The educational goal
here is to build bridges between the analytical and compassionate sides of the
humanitarian engineer’s brain, their natural tendencies/skills, so they can be
more effective in helping people.
Curricular Constraints and Prerequisites
The content of this book, and the (on-line) course based on it, are the result of
a number of curricular constraints:
• Disciplinary accessibility and prerequisites: Content had to be accessible
to all engineering disciplines. This creates a significant challenge in mak-
ing the course technical as there are very few technical engineering subjects
in common to all engineering majors, that will naturally attract students.
This led to the use of computer simulations via Matlab as all our engineer-
ing students have experience with it. Also, a very small amount of calculus
is used since it can be assumed that all students will have some basic math
and with this we can study dynamics. The only idea from calculus that
is assumed to be known is the derivative; however, standard explanations
of it being the slope are adequate here in all cases (e.g., in the study of
dynamics, sensitivity, and optimization). The integral is only needed in
discrete-time form, that is, as a simple sum. Only the most basic ideas
of statistics are used like the average and standard deviation. Combining
these allows us to: (i) develop some types of humanitarian technologies,
(ii) study social impact and context, and (iii) study “sociotechnological
systems,” ones comprised of technologies embedded in human groups like
communities.
• Reliance on curricula in engineering disciplines: Content can, however,
rely on the technical part of the curriculum in each engineering discipline;
hence, there is no need to cover technical issues for each and every disci-
pline, which is clearly beyond the scope of any single book.
• Educational level and fieldwork preparation: Content had to be designed to
be accessible to all, from sophomores to PhD students, with an occasional
second-semester freshman. The desire to offer the subject to lower-level
students is driven by the need to provide the fundamentals of humani-
tarian engineering before students conduct projects/fieldwork, locally or
internationally, and before more advanced engineering classes that might
be on relevant technologies (e.g., water filtration). For such projects at
OSU there are additional preparatory courses, service-learning or capstone

Preface xiv
design, where specific and often “appropriate technologies” are developed
before fieldwork on site. The course at the web site for classes based
on this book has a detailed Midterm/Final Project on development of
an actual appropriate technology (see Section 4.6.3), one that has to be
implemented and demonstrated in front of class by a team.
• Core course for a minor: At OSU we have a humanitarian engineering
minor that can be taken by any engineering student. This book is the
basis for the three-credit required “core course” for this minor, that also
requires six credits of coursework on “human welfare” and six credits of
“project work.” Hence, this book covers basic issues that need to be un-
derstood by anyone with a humanitarian engineering minor (e.g., poverty,
social justice, development, and participation) since the human welfare
category can be fulfilled with a wide range of possible courses (e.g., sus-
tainability and environment, sociology, development studies, economics,
or disabilities) and possibly not some key foundational topics.
Evolving Local and Global Perspectives
It is impossible for one person from the US, even if he gets inputs from a range
of colleagues and students in the US and abroad, to develop a truly global
perspective on the field of humanitarian engineering. I need inputs from all
over the world, from people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged to top
experts in development, to achieve that goal. I believe strongly in the power
of “open public discussion” and critique of this work to produce and mature a
valuable perspective on humanitarian engineering. It is for this reason, in order
to “evolve” a more global and inclusive perspective, I have for a number of years
gathered inputs:
• Teaching in-person to a diverse audience:
– For students at OSU, which includes many from other countries; and
– Talks or short courses on the subject in the US and other countries,
especially in the developing world (where I hope to promote local de-
velopment of country-specific versions of courses based on this book).
• On-line education:
– On-line course: An on-line version of a course from this book can be
obtained by clicking here.
– On-line short courses: In several cases, in-person lectures on the
subjects of this book (e.g., for short courses) have been recorded and
you can see these by clicking here.
• e-Book: This facilitates incorporating updates in the rapidly-evolving area
of humanitarian engineering.

Preface xv
I am well-aware that nations, communities, sets of problems (and their pri-
orities), viewpoints (e.g., religious, philosophical, or moral), and solutions are
all different. All problems are local. Context matters. However, I am hopeful
that we can learn from each other and work together to distill a set of essential
principles to learn (i.e., the fundamentals of humanitarian engineering), and at
least some “best practices” on how to approach engineering for development
(i.e., for “practice” where the principles are applied in the real world). I under-
stand the wisdom in the statement: “in theory there is no difference between
theory and practice, but in practice there is.” The approach here is to attempt
to develop a “theory informed by practice” much like what has been achieved
for many other topics in engineering education. A professional humanitarian
engineer would never only study this book, or only take a course based on it.
Humanitarian engineering requires broad reading, and is a deeply social field
and one that requires “on-the-ground” up-close work; hence you need to talk
to people (colleagues or locals) about the issues and work with them to solve
problems to understand and make concrete the real issues (e.g., not just at an
intellectual level, but at an emotional and personal level).
On-Line Course, Latest Book Edition, and Sup-
plements
At the web site for this book there is:
• Information about how to obtain the book, current/latest, and past edi-
tions (download at no cost);
• Matlab/Simulink code used in the book;
• Electronic reports and papers; and
• Other resources.
At the web site for classes based on this book there are free:
• Electronic lecture slides (.ppt form);
• On-line videos of lectures (semester-long course at OSU and short courses);
• Syllabus, assigned projects, and homework problems; and
• Syllabus for a follow-on course called “Computational Humanitarianism”
at OSU, that builds on the technical parts of this book.
Navigating the Electronic Book
Providing an e-book provides a number of advantages, including: (i) not cutting
down trees in order to learn (sustainable education); (ii) easy navigation and

Preface xvi
electronic search (e.g., for keywords of interest, so there is no need for a book
index); and (iii) the potential to view the document on many different devices.
A single .pdf file of the book is provided to facilitate (ii) and (iii). For this .pdf
file:
• In .pdf viewers like Acrobat Reader (free) or Acrobat Pro, there is a “side
panel” that can be opened that holds “Bookmarks.” These make it easy
to move to all major parts of the document.
• Another way to move around the .pdf file of the book is to use “Page
Thumbnails” that is a panel on the left side of Adobe Reader and Adobe
Acrobat.
The following features have been added to make it easier to navigate the
electronic .pdf file of the book by jumping to key referenced entities:
1. Numbers, text, page numbers, or mathematical symbols in red are “click-
able” and lead to a page, equation, table, figure, problem, notation and
acronyms, chapter, section, or subsection (for these last three, it provides,
via the table of contents, and mini-tables of contents at the start of each
chapter, another easy way to move around the document).
2. Bibliographic citations are in green and are clickable and take you to the
Bibliography at the end of the book. In the Bibliography, at the end of
each citation, there is a list of page numbers in red that are clickable and
take you to the page where the citation was made (i.e., “back referencing”).
In the “Notation and Acronyms” list, at the end of each entry, there is a
page number in red that is clickable and it will take you to the page where
the reference was made.
3. Text in blue is clickable and takes you outside the document to your web
browser to see a web site (if any links are broken, please email me at
the address below, but in the mean time you can likely use your search
engine to find the web site). If, for blue text, rather than clicking you do
a “rollover” (“mouseover” where the mouse is moved and the pointer is
on top the blue), in many .pdf viewers the web site link pops up if you
wait a brief time hovering.
Colors in this section of the Preface are not clickable, and are only used to
illustrate the colors to watch for. Anywhere else in the book, clicking on red
text, numbers, or symbols or bibliographic citations takes you to places internal
to the document, while clicking on blue text and numbers takes you to a web
site external to the document.
To navigate back to where you were after clicking on red text, numbers, or
symbols or bibliographic citations, it is possible to use a simple key stroke (or
button, depending on your .pdf viewer) to return to the location or view you
were at before the click. For example, if you use Adobe Acrobat, you can go
to the “View” menu under “Page Navigation” and click on “Previous View”

Preface xvii
to go back to where you were (or use the key stroke of “command-left arrow,”
on the Macintosh). Alternatively, if you are on a PC under Windows, and are
using Acrobat Reader, then you use the key stroke “Alt-left arrow” to obtain
the “Previous View.”
This Book vs. Lectures Based on It
By design, there are some distinct and significant differences between the content
of this book and lectures based on it. A clear separation was sought between the
two as they opportunities for different modes of learning that are synergistic in
contributing to better learning. The learning modes are designed to complement
each other, increasingly feasible considering the presence of e-books and on-line
education. Some differences between this book and the course based on it are:
1. A significant part of the approach in class and project assignments is based
on “cooperative learning” (Johnson and Johnson, 2009, 2014) directed at
cooperative technology development. To learn about this approach, see
the link to the video of the first lecture of the course given in the side note
(text is clickable) or the course web site for the full details. Cooperative
learning is used to teach students about one of the biggest challenges of
The practice of
cooperation is a key
determinant of
success in
humanitarian
engineering
fieldwork.
humanitarian engineering for communities, cooperative problem solving
with community members and a team.
2. I will tend to teach the main ideas and principles in lectures, and leave full
definitions, data, and technical details to the book (in the main text, or
via self-study via the web or homework problems) to complement learning
from lectures.
3. I tend to treat broad issues in lecture, and leave the book and hands-on
solutions to homework problems to specific versions of the broad issues
(e.g., I may discuss broad issues in poverty and development in lectures,
but discuss specific countries in the book, and require the student to learn
about specific countries or people in homework problems).
4. In several cases I treat important ideas from homework problems in lec-
tures that are not treated in detail in the main text of the book. In other
cases, the important points made by homework problems are not covered
in lectures, or the main text of the book, but left to self-study.
5. I leave discussions and debates entirely to class lectures (face-to-face or
on-line), or discussions in group meetings outside class, and I do not even
identify in this book the topics for these (see the on-line lectures). This
leaves the flexibility to also discuss changing current world events.
6. I often show how to use a software tool in class, discuss more details about
it in the book, then assign a homework problem for a detailed hands-on
experience (e.g., in the case of computer simulations of poverty, social

Preface xviii
justice, development, or community development). You really cannot un-
derstand the tools without using them, so I broadly describe what the tools
are and what they provide in this book, and I show broadly in class how
to use software tools (e.g., for one case), but I leave homework problems
for more thorough learning of the tools.
Feedback on the Book and Course
I welcome your inputs, suggestions, and feedback on this book and the course.
To provide such input, please email me at
passino.1@osu.edu
Please provide carefully thought-out feedback, and when appropriate provide
justification for your opinions (e.g., scholarly and authoritative publications).
The “Publisher”
The name of the “publisher” for this book that is used on the title page is
a complete fabrication on my part; there is no such publishing company. I
invented “Bede Publishing” simply to fill the necessary slot for bibliographic
referencing of this book. This book has never been sold, and there are no plans
to ever sell it. The only costs incurred in publishing this book are computer
hardware and software costs, and my time, both of which are supported by my
employer, The Ohio State University. I gratefully acknowledge this support.
Acknowledgements
I have obtained many people’s kind inputs over the years that have, in the
spirit of humanitarianism, helped me develop and improve this book and the
corresponding course. Listed below, in no particular order, are individuals and
groups who have helped.
Individuals: My current PhD students, Luis Felipe Giraldo Trujillo from
Colombia, Hugo Gonzalez Villasanti from Paraquay, and Isabel Fernandez Puentes
from Colombia have helped with some code development, checking the modeling
and analysis parts of the book, suggesting some homework problems, and with
finding relevant literature on these technical subjects. Maggie McHugh, an OSU
student, helped by doing research for me on several topics that helped with ini-
tial course development, and this impacted the book also. Molly Moran, an OSU
graduate student, has taught me by working with her on local engineering service
projects in the Community Technology Clinic discussed in Chapter 4. Destiny
Allen helped me with the sociology perspective by connecting me to some lit-
erature and faculty at OSU in sociology, Stephanie DeTillio and Mary Scherer
provided helpful suggestions on STEM education issues, Valerie Hager identified

Preface xix
some useful sources on international STEM education for me, and Alex Aurand
gave inputs on environmental justice simulations; all were OSU students. Bob
Gustafson of OSU has given very helpful encouragement, help, and input, espe-
cially on the course associated with this book. Andrea Serrani has helped me on
nonlinear analysis and control, particularly for the financial advisor. Betty Lise
Anderson, in the Dept. Electrical and Computer Eng. at OSU has taught me
much about STEM education and works with me on a current project in Colom-
bia (“iSTEM,” discuss later in the book). Roger Dzwonczyk, John Merrill, and
Howard Greene of OSU have run many courses and international project trips in
Honduras for humanitarian engineering (one since 2005) and have provided me
with a number of inputs over the years. Michael Hagenberger has provided me
with a Civil Engineering perspective. Greg Bixler of OSU and the nongovern-
mental organization (NGO) “Design Outreach” provided some sources and edits.
Lisa Fiorentini, in the Dept. Electrical and Computer Eng., is working now on a
the development of a “basic utility vehicle” and has taught me about that prob-
lem, and issues in project management. Joseph Campbell has worked with me
on a paper in humanitarian engineering and provided advice on rural sociology.
Don Hempson of OSU’s global engineering program provided input on cultural
issues in engineering. Ola Ahlqvist, leader of the OSU service-learning initiative
helped me find experts at OSU who could help, and provided some references.
Marty Kress has helped teach me about issues in water for international devel-
opment, and provided a version of the problem statement for the community
technology management problem in Chapter 4. Mario Miranda at OSU has
helped with quantitative development economics ideas. Katey Borland, a pro-
fessor of comparative studies at OSU, helped me with development issues and
service ideas. Cathy Rakowsky, a professor at OSU, helped with a rural soci-
ology perspective. Amy Acton, in the OSU College of Public Health, helped
me with global health, as has Michael Bisesi in the same College. Bob Rhoads,
from the OSU College of Engineering, provided a number of inputs, such as on
design methodology. Kent Beittel, Director of the Open Shelter in Columbus
Ohio, helped teach me about technologies for people who are homeless. Kelly
Wurtz, my brother-in-law, and an expert on international political economy,
provided a variety of inputs on poverty, development, and illicit markets, in-
cluding recommendations on what to cover and teach. Khanjan Mehta and
Thomas Colledge at Pennsylvania State University gave me several inputs (e.g.,
on social entrepreneurship, philosophical issues, and collaboration with Tom on
the “Scholarship in Engineering for Social Justice: A Practitioner’s Forum”).
John Clapp, from the OSU College of Social Work, helped me with several issues
associated with the US case, including recommendations on the books covered
here on social work. Leslie Moore, in the OSU College of Education and Human
Ecology, and Mark Mortiz, in the Dept. Anthropology, both helped with cultural
issues and Leslie also helped me with international education. Melissa Wilson,
also in the OSU College of Education and Human Ecology helped by providing a
lesson plan template for STEM education. Jennifer DeBoer, from Purdue Uni-
versity, taught me about global competencies for engineering education. James
Altschuld, also in the OSU College of Education and Human Ecology, helped

Preface xx
me with the needs assessment parts in Chapter 4. Steve Silliman, who used to
be with the Univ. Notre Dame, and who is now at Gonzaga Univ. as Dean,
provided me with a number of useful conversations on how to approach human-
itarian engineering. John Passino (my cousin), a top official at the US Dept.
Agriculture, has helped me understand some higher-level US government issues.
Zachary Palmer, an OSU student, Margie Pfeil, Univ. Notre Dame, Dept. The-
ology, Greer Pagano, Rabbi Laura Baum of Congregation Beth Adam, Omar
Tarazi Esq., Ovamir Anjum of Univ. Toledo, Dept. Philosophy, Islamic Stud-
ies, Benjamin McKean who is at OSU in political science, and Ingrid Mattson
at the Univ. Western Ontario, gave inputs or advice on social justice. Manuel
Betancur, of Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellı́n, Colombia helped
me learn about issues in Colombia, and hosted me there several times. Nicanor
Quijano, of Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia provided input on
global poverty issues and has been an on-going partner, indeed the leader and
originator, of the university development project that will be described later in
this book (“weLab”). Jorge Finke, of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cali,
Colombia provided inputs on several issues with the book (e.g., ideas for survey
questions to ask students), inputs on STEM education, and good information
on corruption. Also, Jorge and Nicanor (both past students of mine) taught
me a lot about Colombia, hosted me there several times, worked with me on
two humanitarian engineering projects there, and both have worked with me on
the weLab/iSTEM projects. Andrés Pantoja, of the Universidad de Nariño is
working with us now on a project for low-cost laboratory experiments, and K-12
STEM education, in Pasto, Colombia. Margarita Gomez Sarmiento, director of
Pequeños Cientı́ficos, in Bogotá, Colombia has taught me about STEM educa-
tion methods and goals in Colombia. Lee Yee Cheong, from Malaysia, helped
me with technology policy and sources on it. Raúl Ordoñez (past student of
mine), from Ecuador and partly educated in México, and now with the Univer-
sity of Dayton, has taught me about Latin America and a bit about Ecuador in
particular. Alvaro Gil and José Velasquez (past students of mine), both from
Venezuela, have taught me some about Latin American politics. Alejandro J.
Piña Ortega, an OSU graduate student, taught me about issues of volunteerism
in Venezuela. Vickie Rush helped me understand issues in Honduras, and the
running of an orphanage for HIV/AIDS children in Honduras. Carlos Juárez of
Universidad Centroamericana in San Salvador, El Salvador, and Mayra Méndez
and Mauricio Quiñonez of the IEEE Section of El Salvador all helped me un-
derstand issues in El Salvador. Juan Diaz (my brother-in-law) has helped me
understand issues in México. My wife Anne edited one section of the book.
Groups: Students in my class “Humanitarian Engineering” at OSU have pro-
vided a variety of inputs via discussions and questions in and outside of class,
along with their solutions to homework problems and projects and by finding
typos in the book. Students in my engineering ethics class that I have taught at
OSU since 1991 have provided me a variety of US and international perspectives
on ethics in engineering (which has a number of close connections to social jus-

Preface xxi
tice, discussed later in this book). Students from the OSU student organization
“Engineers for Community Service” (ECOS), of which I am the faculty advisor,
have provided me many inputs (and pleasant demands) since their formation
in Spring 2004. I have obtained useful inputs from the OSU “Humanitarian
Engineering Advisory Committee” led by Howard Greene. Many of the people
already mentioned are involved with the OSU Humanitarian Engineering Cen-
ter. The OSU Muslim Student Association Executive Board helped me with
Islamic social justice issues. I have visited, given technical talks, or delivered
short courses, including on Humanitarian Engineering, in a number of countries
where various people (e.g., over lunch or dinner) have given me insights into
their countries, including in: Colombia (universities in Medellı́n, Bogotá, and
Cali), México (universities in Guadalajara and México City), El Salvador, and
Turkey. I have given talks on humanitarian engineering and engineering ethics
in a variety of universities and thank the students, faculty, and practicing engi-
neers who gave me a number of insights; these include several US universities,
Universidad de El Salvador and Universidad Centroamericana in San Salvador,
El Salvador, and Colombia (in Medellı́n, at Universidad Pont. Bolivariana, Bo-
gotá, at Univiversidad de los Andes, and in Pasto at Universidad de Nariño).
Also, I have been involved in some domestic and international humanitarian
engineering projects where I received feedback from locals and learned some
valuable lessons of practice: US, Honduras, Colombia, and Guatemala. All
these, and other countries I have visited (China, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain,
England, Wales, Sweden, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Ba-
hamas), have taught me about other cultures and a wide range of perspectives,
including how others view the US.
I would like to also thank the L
A
TEX community for an excellent and free set
of word processing tools that resulted in this book.
I have obtained financial support from the IEEE Foundation, two Battelle
Engineering, Technology, and Human Affairs (BETHA) grants, an OSU Engage-
ment Impact Grant, the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at OSU,
and the College of Engineering at OSU. This support is gratefully acknowledged.
Finally, I owe many thanks to my wife Anne for taking care of our children
while I was out gallivanting around the world; this book would not exist if I did
not have her kind, loving, and continuing help (i.e., these days, one of her hu-
manitarian activities). Also, I would like to thank our children Carina, Juliana,
Jacob, and Zacarias and our grandchild, Elijah, who have given me wonderful
distractions from research and writing.
Many thanks to each and every one of you. It has been fun!
Kevin ,
Columbus, Ohio, US
2015

Brief Contents
1 Poverty, Sustainability, and Culture 1
World Poverty and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Poverty in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Sustainable Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Culture and Global Competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Engineers’ Role in Humanitarianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Models, Dynamics, and Analysis of Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Homework Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Annotated Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
2 Social Justice 112
Social Justice and Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Religious Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Secular Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Models, Dynamics, and Analysis of Social Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
3 Development Strategies 265
Society, Technological Change, and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Development Economists’ Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Global Health Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
International Education Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Social Business Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Models, Dynamics, and Analysis of Development Strategies . . . . . . 351

Contents xxiii
4 Engineering for Sustainable Community Development 395
The Helper and Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Participatory Community Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
Community Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
Project Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
Teamwork and Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
Humanitarian Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
Participatory Technology Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Humanitarian STEM Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
Assessment of Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
Dissemination and Scale Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
Humanitarian Engineering Fieldwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Models, Dynamics, and Analysis of Sociotechnological Systems . . . . 603
Information Sources for Humanitarian Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . 662
The 10 Principles of Humanitarian Engineering 670
Recommended Study 672
Bibliography 673
Biography 693

Contents
1 Poverty, Sustainability, and Culture 1
1.1 World Poverty and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1.1 Understanding World Poverty: A Close Up View . . . . . 4
- Living and Talking With People . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
- Emotional Reaction from Close Up . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
- Developing Solidarity With People . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
- Language and Labels for People and Places . . . . . . . 7
- Other Close-Up Information on Poverty . . . . . . . . . 8
1.1.2 World Statistics: A View a From a Distance . . . . . . . . 9
- Context and Basic Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
- Measuring Poverty and Development . . . . . . . . . . . 10
- Income Measure of Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
- Income Inequality: The Gini Index . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
- Human Development Index and Inequality-Adjusted Hu-
man Development Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
- Multidimensional Poverty Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
- Gender Inequality and Development Indices . . . . . . . 15
- Exploring the United Nations Data . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
- Engineering and Technology Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
- Exploring the World Bank Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . 17
- Additional World-Wide Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
- Divisions of the United Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.2 Poverty in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.2.1 Living in Poverty in America: A Close Up View . . . . . 22
1.2.2 Poverty in America: A View From a Distance . . . . . . . 23
- Official Definition of Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
- Homelessness in the US . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.2.3 Comparing US Poverty to Other Countries . . . . . . . . 25
1.3 Sustainable Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.3.1 The Pollution Problem: Close Up View . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.3.2 Ecosystems and Human Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Contents xxv
1.3.3 Air Pollution and Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.3.4 Water Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
1.3.5 Soil Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.3.6 Pollution and Planetary Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1.3.7 Ecological Footprint and the Human Development Index . 34
1.3.8 The UN Sustainable Development Goals . . . . . . . . . . 35
1.4 Culture and Global Competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.4.1 Features of Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.4.2 Why Cross-Cultural Understanding is Important . . . . . 39
1.4.3 Culture and Conversation: A Close Up View . . . . . . . 40
- Small-Talk Conversation and Talking About Culture . . 41
- Views I Have Heard About the US . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
- Things I Do Not Understand About Other Cultures . . 44
- Conversations About More Difficult Subjects . . . . . . 45
- Individuals’ Extremism, Ideology, and Intolerance . . . . 46
1.4.4 World-Wide Cultural Differences: A View From a Distance 47
- The World Values Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
- Giving, Volunteering, and Helping Strangers . . . . . . . 48
- Quality of Life, Satisfaction, Happiness, and Affect . . . 49
- World Mood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
- Other Large Polls on Cultural Issues . . . . . . . . . . . 51
1.5 Engineers’ Role in Humanitarianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
1.5.1 Matching Engineering Expertise to a Development Chal-
lenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
- Development Challenges and Technological Solutions . . 51
- When Engineering Does Not Work . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
1.5.2 Engineering Priorities: A View From a Distance . . . . . 53
1.5.3 Degrees of Humanitarian Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . 55
- Humanitarian and Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
- Degree Definitions in Terms of Poverty and Social Justice 58
- Degree in Terms of Achieved Change . . . . . . . . . . . 59
- Long-Term Global Humanitarian Engineering Strategy . 61
1.5.4 Why Have a Role in Humanitarianism? . . . . . . . . . . 61
- Reasons to Be a Humanitarian Engineer . . . . . . . . . 62
- Reasons to Serve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
1.5.5 Engineers’ Roles: From People to Policy . . . . . . . . . . 65
1.5.6 Engineers’ Roles: From Charity to Profit . . . . . . . . . 66
1.5.7 Engineers’ Roles: From Practice to Theory . . . . . . . . 67
1.6 Models, Dynamics, and Analysis of Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
1.6.1 Influence Diagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
- Influence Diagram for Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
- Adding Expressive Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
1.6.2 Matlab/Simulink for Simulating Dynamics . . . . . . . . . 71
- Matlab/Simulink Tutorial: Signals, Systems, and Feedback 71
- Example: Life-Long Budget Simulator . . . . . . . . . . 72
1.6.3 Poverty Dynamics and a Personal Spending Strategy . . . 72

Contents xxvi
- Dynamical Model of Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
- Computing Metrics for Poverty: Dynamics of Suffering
and Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
- Effect of Spending Strategy on Metrics: One Life Time . 75
- Effect of Spending Strategy on Metrics: Average Life Time 77
- High-Risk/Low-Suffering Spending Strategy . . . . . . . 78
1.6.4 Proportional-Integral-Derivative Spending Strategy . . . . 81
- PID Spending Strategy in Feedback Control . . . . . . . 81
- Features of the PID Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
- Design for Avoidance of Suffering and Risk . . . . . . . 84
- The Intelligence of the PID Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . 85
1.6.5 Modeling and Strategy Improvements . . . . . . . . . . . 87
1.6.6 Personal Spending Strategy Implementation . . . . . . . . 89
1.6.7 Development Constrained by Sustainability . . . . . . . . 91
- Dynamical Model of the Tragedy of the Commons . . . 91
- Analysis of Impact of Development and Population Size
on the Commons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
1.6.8 Principles of Feedback Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
- Process Features and Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
- Controller Functionalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
- Properties and Analysis of Closed-Loop Feedback Systems 99
1.7 Homework Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
1.8 Annotated Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
2 Social Justice 112
2.1 Social Justice and Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
2.1.1 Human Rights and the Fight Against Inequality: A Close
Up View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
- Human Rights: History and Overview . . . . . . . . . . 115
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream Speech . . 115
2.1.2 The Synergy Between Social Justice and Engineering . . . 116
- Technological Capacity: Inequality and the Trap . . . . 116
- Social Justice’s Mandate to Engineers: Reduce Inequal-
ity of Technological Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . 117
- Why Social Justice in Engineering for Sustainable De-
velopment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
2.1.3 Bias, Coverage, Controversy, Civility, and Tolerance . . . 120
- Potential Sources of Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
- Coverage and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
- Controversy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
- A Call for Civility and Tolerance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
2.2 Religious Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
2.2.1 Buddhist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Contents xxvii
- Social Order and Concern for Others . . . . . . . . . . . 124
- Government, Social Engagement, and Mindfulness . . . 124
- Suffering and Interconnectedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
2.2.2 Catholic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
- Dignity of the Human Person and Human Rights . . . . 127
- Principles of Catholic Social Doctrine . . . . . . . . . . 128
- Application Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
- A Call to Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
2.2.3 Confucian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
- Distributive Justice, Sufficiency, and Inequality . . . . . 146
- Contemporary Political and Economic Views . . . . . . 147
2.2.4 Hindu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
- The Caste System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
- Hindu Social Justice Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
- Modern Reform Movements for Caste and Gender Equality150
2.2.5 Islam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
- Social Justice in the Qur’an and Later Reform Trends . 151
- Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, and Muslim Brotherhood 152
- Muslims and Social Justice Today . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
2.2.6 Jewish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
- The Jewish Notion of Social Justice . . . . . . . . . . . 154
- Charity in Judaism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
2.3 Secular Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
2.3.1 John Rawls’s Justice as Fairness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
- Fundamental Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
- Principles of Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
- The Argument From the Original Position . . . . . . . . 164
- Institutions of a Just Basic Structure . . . . . . . . . . . 166
- The Question of Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
2.3.2 Amartya Sen’s Idea of Justice and Development as Freedom168
- The Demands of Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
- Markets, State, and Social Opportunity . . . . . . . . . 184
- Public Reasoning and Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
2.3.3 Social Justice and Engineering Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . 188
- Basics of Engineering Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
- Infusing Engineering Ethics With Social Justice . . . . . 192
- The Globalization of Engineering Ethics Education . . . 196
2.4 Models, Dynamics, and Analysis of Social Justice . . . . . . . . . 197
2.4.1 Influence Diagram Models of Social Justice Systems . . . 198
- Catholic Social Justice Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
- Participatory Justice Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
2.4.2 Distributive Justice Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
- Influence Diagrams for Humans With Features . . . . . 202
- Influence Diagrams for Human Groups With Features . 204
- Example: Influence Diagram for Economic Distributive
Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Contents xxviii
- Distributions Across Other Features and Cross-Feature
Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
- Measuring Inequality in Multiple Human Features . . . 215
2.4.3 Wealth Distribution Policy to Promote Distributive Justice215
- Wealth Distribution Policy in a Small Low-Wealth Com-
munity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
- Mutual Cooperation in a Low-Wealth Community of
Equals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
- Communities With Inequality in Individual Incomes . . 225
- Community With Inequality in Individual Incomes and
Desired Wealths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
2.4.4 Democracy for Wealth Distribution Policy Choice . . . . 230
- Voting on Wealth Distribution Policy Changes . . . . . 231
- The Emergence of Mutual Cooperation in a Low-Wealth
Community of Equals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
- Low-Wealth-Skewed Unequal Community . . . . . . . . 235
- Rich-Skewed Unequal Community . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
- Impact of Inequality on an Average Community . . . . . 239
- Challenges in Analysis of Integrated Democracy and Dis-
tributive Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
2.4.5 Environmental Justice and the Commons . . . . . . . . . 246
- Environmental Justice Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
- Effects of Policy on Utilizations and Resources . . . . . 248
- Impact of Population Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
2.4.6 Distributed Control: Principles and Approaches . . . . . 250
- Stability and Robustness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
- Distributed Feedback Control Via Optimization . . . . . 252
3 Development Strategies 265
3.1 Society, Technological Change, and Development . . . . . . . . . 269
3.1.1 Technological Change and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
3.1.2 Impact of Technology on Development . . . . . . . . . . . 271
3.1.3 Lessons for the Engineer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
3.2 Development Economists’ Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
3.2.1 Jeffrey Sachs: The End of Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
- Economic Advancement and Decline . . . . . . . . . . . 276
- Solutions for Ending Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
- Technological Capacity and Scaling Up Solutions . . . . 280
- Global Compact to End Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
- Science for Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Contents xxix
- Can the Rich Afford to Provide Help People of Low
Income? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
- Is Globalization Good? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
- Lessons for the Engineer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
3.2.2 William Easterly: The White Man’s Burden . . . . . . . . 288
- Planners vs. Searchers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
- The Legend of the Big Push . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
- Perspectives on Issues in Development . . . . . . . . . . 291
- The Future of Western Assistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
3.2.3 Paul Collier: The Bottom Billion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
3.2.4 Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo: Poor Economics . . . 297
- Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
- Hunger, Health, Education, and Family . . . . . . . . . 300
- Risks, Loans, Savings, and Jobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
- Policy and Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
- Five Lessons for Helping Low-Income People . . . . . . 311
3.3 Global Health Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
3.3.1 Global Health Up Close . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
3.3.2 Health Initiatives and Statistics: A View From a Distance 313
3.3.3 Richard Skolnik: Global Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
- Determinants of Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
- Socioecological Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
- Environmental Health: Air Pollution, Sanitation, and
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
- Technology for Global Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
3.4 International Education Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
3.4.1 International Education Up Close . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
3.4.2 Education Initiatives and Statistics: A View from a Distance319
- Jomtein/Dakar and Education for All . . . . . . . . . . 319
- Information and Statistics on International Education . 320
- International Mathematics, Science, and Technology Ed-
ucation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
3.4.3 Utilitarian vs. Transformational Perspectives . . . . . . . 321
3.4.4 Clive Harber: Education and International Development . 322
- School Access and Attendance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
- Educational Quality and Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
- Technical and Vocational Education and Training . . . . 326
- Political Learning and Globalization . . . . . . . . . . . 326
3.4.5 International Mathematics, Science, and Technology Ed-
ucation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
- Numeracy and Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
- Science and Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

Contents xxx
3.5 Social Business Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
3.5.1 C.K. Prahalad: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits . . . 329
- A Retrospective Overview of the Approach . . . . . . . 330
- The Market at the Bottom of the Pyramid . . . . . . . . 332
- Products and Services for the Bottom of the Pyramid . 334
3.5.2 Polak and Warwick: The Business Solution to Poverty . . 338
- The Business Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
- Zero-Based Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
- Only Business Can End Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
- Zero-Based Design and the Bottom Billions . . . . . . . 345
- Marketing and Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
3.6 Models, Dynamics, and Analysis of Development Strategies . . . 351
3.6.1 Technology, Economic Growth, and Poverty Traps . . . . 352
- Common View of Economic Growth . . . . . . . . . . . 352
- Effects of Technology Quality on Growth Dynamics In-
duced by Poverty Traps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354
3.6.2 Sensitivity Analysis for Models of Economic Growth . . . 357
- Mathematical and Computational Approaches to Sensi-
tivity Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
- Example: Development Investment Allocation Decisions
Via Sensitivity Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
3.6.3 Optimization for Models of Economic Growth . . . . . . . 363
- Optimization and Monte Carlo Simulation . . . . . . . . 363
- Example: Optimization for Continuous Development In-
vestment Allocations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
- Optimization Algorithms for Investment Decisions . . . 367
3.6.4 Effects of Technology Diffusion on Poverty Dynamics . . . 369
- Dynamical Models of Diffusion of Innovations . . . . . . 369
- Integrating Technology Diffusion and Poverty Trap Models370
- Economic Growth with a Poverty Trap and Technology
Diffusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
3.6.5 Breaking Poverty Traps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
- Capital Accumulation Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
- Capital Investment Rate to Escape Poverty Trap: With-
out and With Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
- Provisioning to Escape Poverty Trap: Without and With
Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
3.6.6 Resource Utilization Control for Sustainable Development 377
- Feedback Control for Resource Level Maintenance . . . 378
- Impact of Population Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Contents xxxi
4 Engineering for Sustainable Community Development 395
4.1 The Helper and Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
4.1.1 Engineering as a Helping Profession . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
4.1.2 Gerard Egan: The Skilled Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
- Elements of Successful Helping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
- The Helper-Client Relationship is a Working Alliance . 402
- Communication Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
- Problem-Management and Opportunity-Development . . 404
- Deciding to Start or End Helping . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
4.1.3 Helping a Client as a Feedback Control Process . . . . . . 407
4.1.4 The Engineer Helper and Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
- Active Technical Listening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
- The Key Role of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
- Examples: Humanitarian Engineering for a Single Client 410
4.2 Participatory Community Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
4.2.1 The Challenges of Community Development . . . . . . . . 411
- Confronting Oppression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
- Empowerment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
- Resistance to Working for Change . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
- Root Causes vs. Symptoms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
- Relationships, Culture, and Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . 415
4.2.2 Theoretical Perspectives on Community Development . . 416
- Systems Theory for Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
- Healthy and Close Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
- Power in a Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
- Organizing and Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
- Principles of Community Building . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
- The Community Development Model . . . . . . . . . . . 419
- Development vs. Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
4.2.3 Community Capital and Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . 420
- General Features: Human, Physical, and Environmental 421
- Environmental, Physical, and Economic . . . . . . . . . 422
- Human Development, Political, and Communication . . 423
- Cultural, Spiritual, Social, and Emotional . . . . . . . . 424
- Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
4.2.4 Participatory Development: Introduction . . . . . . . . . 425
- Participatory Development: Background . . . . . . . . . 425
- Stages of Participatory Development . . . . . . . . . . . 427
4.2.5 Get to Know the People: Everything Happens on the Back
of a Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
- Basics of a Establishing a Relationship with a Community428

Contents xxxii
- Basics of a Good Working Relationship . . . . . . . . . 429
4.2.6 Participation of Engineers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
- Level and Type of of Engineering Participation . . . . . 430
- The Engineer as a Student/Educator/Mentor of the Com-
munity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
4.2.7 Features of Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
- Types of Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
- Forming an Inclusive Team and Avoiding Group Think . 435
- Challenges of Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
4.2.8 Participatory Action Research: Learning and Acting . . . 438
- Principles of PAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
- PAR Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
4.2.9 Participatory Monitoring, Evaluation, and Impact Analysis440
4.2.10 Participatory Development as a Dynamical Cooperative
Feedback Control Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
4.2.11 Examples: Common-Pool Resources, Education, and Health
Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
4.2.12 Participatory Development Outcomes and Lessons . . . . 445
4.3 Community Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
4.3.1 Combining Needs, Resources, Capacity, and Aspirations
Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
4.3.2 The Community Assessment Process . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
4.3.3 Gathering Information About a Community . . . . . . . . 454
- Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
- Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
- Focus Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
- Interviews and Focus Groups With Demonstrations . . . 456
- Survey Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
- Question and Response Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
- Lickert Items and Scales: Discrete Responses . . . . . . 459
- Questions With Continuous Responses . . . . . . . . . . 461
- Non-Numeric Responses: Example Survey on Social Jus-
tice Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
- Questions With Dual-Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
- Priorities/Importance: Discrete Responses . . . . . . . . 464
- Priorities/Importance: Continuous Responses . . . . . . 466
4.3.4 Aggregating and Visualizing Community Information . . 466
- Qualitative Information: Verbal/Written Words . . . . . 467
- Quantitive/Numeric Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
4.3.5 Engineers’ Technical Assessment of a Community . . . . . 470
- Assessments for Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
- Interactions, Root Cause Analysis, and Dynamics . . . . 471
- Vulnerability, Risk, and Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
4.4 Project Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
4.4.1 Project Goals: Promoting Social Justice . . . . . . . . . . 475
- Technologies for Fulfilling Human Rights . . . . . . . . . 476

Contents xxxiii
- Technologies for Extending Essential Human Capabilities 477
- Human Rights That Cannot Be Promoted With Tech-
nologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
4.4.2 Multicriteria Decision Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
- Criteria, Assessments, and Uncertainty . . . . . . . . . . 480
- Priorities/Importance and Uncertainties . . . . . . . . . 483
- Quantification of Alternatives: Preferences . . . . . . . . 485
- Assess and Rank Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
- Compare to Base-Line and Rank Approach . . . . . . . 490
- Equivalence of Rankings and Recommendations . . . . . 491
- Mathematical Sensitivity Analysis: Effects of Informa-
tion Changes on Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . 492
- Computational Sensitivity Analysis Using a Spreadsheet 495
- Computational Robust Decision Making . . . . . . . . . 497
4.4.3 Conducting a Robust Project Selection . . . . . . . . . . 501
- Guidelines for Quantifying a Project Selection Problem 502
- Example: Preferences Based on Community and Tech-
nical Assessments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
- Example: Preferences Based on Community Develop-
ment and Technical Assessment . . . . . . . . . 505
4.5 Teamwork and Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
4.5.1 Teamwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
- Strategies for High Performance Teams . . . . . . . . . . 506
- Communications, Cooperation, and Participation Process507
4.5.2 Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
- Initiating, Planning, and Executing Projects . . . . . . . 509
- Monitoring, Controlling, and Closing Projects . . . . . . 510
4.6 Humanitarian Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
4.6.1 The Technology Spectrum: From Novelty to Maturity . . 511
4.6.2 Challenges of Extreme Constraints and Unusual Trade-Offs513
- Extreme Design Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
- Unusual Design Trade-Offs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
4.6.3 Appropriate Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517
- Personal Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
- Community Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519
- Technology for Cooperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
4.6.4 Example: Technologies for People Who Are Homeless . . 522
4.6.5 Technology Selection for Clients, Communities, and NGOs 523
- Making the Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
- Evaluation Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525
- Multicriteria Decision Making for Selection of Humani-
tarian Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
4.6.6 Humanitarian Systems Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
- Engineering and Sweatshops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
- Wide-Area Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528

Contents xxxiv
- Fighting Structural Injustice: A Broad Systems-Theoretic
Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
- Technology for Fighting Structural Injustices . . . . . . 530
4.7 Participatory Technology Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
4.7.1 Participatory Technology Development Up Close . . . . . 531
4.7.2 Focus on Humanitarian Technology Products . . . . . . . 532
4.7.3 Finding Opportunities in a Community . . . . . . . . . . 534
- Finding Opportunities That Match Team Skills . . . . . 534
- Participatory Exploration of Opportunities . . . . . . . 535
4.7.4 Flexible Planning for Participatory Technology Develop-
ment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
4.7.5 Coupling Community Needs, Resources, and Aspirations
to Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539
- Steps to Identify Needs-Technology Combinations . . . . 539
- Can Outsiders Suggest Technologies? Only if the Com-
munity Strongly Affirms an Underlying Need . . 541
4.7.6 Humanitarian Technology Product Specifications . . . . . 543
4.7.7 Participatory Concept Generation, Selection, and Testing 544
- Strategies for Participatory Concept Generation . . . . . 544
- Strategies for Participatory Concept Selection and Testing545
- Architectural and User Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546
4.7.8 Engineering Design for Environmental Sustainability . . . 547
4.7.9 Prototypes, Robustness, and Everything Else . . . . . . . 549
4.7.10 Economics and Project Management . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
4.8 Humanitarian STEM Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
4.8.1 International STEM Education Up Close . . . . . . . . . 553
4.8.2 Principles of International STEM Education . . . . . . . . 553
- STEM Education Aligned With Utilitarian and Trans-
formative Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
- STEM Educational Targets: Basic, Social Justice, Sus-
tainable Community Development, and Industry 554
- STEM for Breaking Socio-Economic Barriers . . . . . . 555
- Values and Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down Approaches . . . . 556
- Abstract/Theoretical vs. Relevant/Useful Content and
Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558
- Teaching the Teachers/Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558
- Instruction in Context: Breaking the Language Barrier . 560
- Instruction in Context: Example from the University Level560
- Technological Capacity at All Levels . . . . . . . . . . . 561
- Developed-World STEM Education for the Developing
World? No. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562
4.8.3 Participatory STEM Education Development . . . . . . . 562
- School or University Opportunities, Needs, Assets, and
Context Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
- STEM Program Specifications: Context and Curricular
Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564

Contents xxxv
- Educational Strategy Concept Generation . . . . . . . . 565
- Pilot Programs: Initial Evaluation of Strategy in Context566
- Program Implementation and Re-Design . . . . . . . . . 567
4.8.4 K-PhD Educational Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567
- Instructional Technologies: Infrastructure . . . . . . . . 567
- Experiment Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568
- Experiment Examples from iSTEM . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
- Experiments for Teaching Social Justice . . . . . . . . . 569
- The K-12/University Synergy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
4.8.5 STEM Education for Sustainable Development . . . . . . 573
- Initiatives on Education for Sustainable Development . . 573
- Educating Children on Sustainable Development . . . . 574
- Poverty, Social Justice, and M&Ms . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
- Cooperation: Juggling and Synchronization . . . . . . . 577
- Environment and Sustainability: Sharing the Lemonade? 580
- Water Pollution and Filtration: Getting the Bugs Out! . 582
- Renewable Energy: Free Electricity!? . . . . . . . . . . . 583
- Sustainable Shelter: Keeping Warm and Dry . . . . . . 585
- Sustainable Development Goals: Getting Children on
Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
4.9 Assessment of Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
4.9.1 Outcome Assessment Rationale and Community Partici-
pation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
4.9.2 Unintended Consequences and Failures . . . . . . . . . . . 588
4.9.3 Quantitative and Qualitative Outcome Assessment Ap-
proaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
4.9.4 Randomized Controlled Trials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
4.10 Dissemination and Scale Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
4.10.1 Design for Manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
4.10.2 Design for Scale: Opportunities and Challenges . . . . . . 594
4.10.3 Participatory Social Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
4.10.4 Reverse Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
4.11 Humanitarian Engineering Fieldwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
4.11.1 Two Governing Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
4.11.2 University Case: Aligning Learning Objectives With Com-
munity Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
4.11.3 Getting Organized and Assessing a Project Site . . . . . . 599
4.11.4 Preparation, Reflection, and Accountability . . . . . . . . 601
4.12 Models, Dynamics, and Analysis of Sociotechnological Systems . 603
4.12.1 Cooperative Management of Community Technology . . . 604
- The Community Technology Management Problem . . . 604
- Management of Community Technology by People . . . 606
- Automated/Semi-Automated Management of Commu-
nity Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608
- Feedback Control for Community Technology Management610

Contents xxxvi
- Computational Analysis of Community Technology Man-
agement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612
4.12.2 Dynamics and Analysis of Technologies in Sustainable
Community Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
- Engineers Without Blinders: Considering the Social Con-
text of Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
- The Community Modeling Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . 615
- Modeling Community Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616
- Representing Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621
- Examples of Community Dynamics: Low and High Tech-
nology Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622
- Sustainable Community Development Index (SCDI) . . 623
- Impact of Technology Quality and Technology Failures
on a Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630
- Model Inaccuracies and Technology for Development as
a Feedback Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
4.12.3 Computational Humanitarianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
- Simulation as a Policy Evaluation and Intervention Decision-
Making Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
- The Automation of Helping People . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
4.15 Information Sources for Humanitarian Engineering . . . . . . . . 662
4.15.1 Principles of Information Source Use . . . . . . . . . . . . 662
- Research and Crowdsourcing the Humanitarian Engi-
neering Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663
- Managing Information Overload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664
- Problems with Lack of Respect for History . . . . . . . . 665
4.15.2 Humanitarian Engineering Information Sources and Pub-
lication Outlets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666
- Web Sites and More . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666
- Conferences, Reports, and Virtual Community . . . . . 668
- Magazine and Journals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 669
The 10 Principles of Humanitarian Engineering 670
Recommended Study 672
Bibliography 673
Biography 693

Notation and Acronyms
App Application 90
ABET Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology 114
a Parameter of production function 352
aij Assessment of criterion j for alternative i 481
amin Minimum assessment of criterion j for alternative i 481
amax Maximum assessment of criterion j for alternative i 481
αu Uncertainty level 483
Ax Atkinson inequality index 626
BOP Bottom of the pyramid 329
c Capital-labor ratio 352
cE
Equilibrium for maximum ultimate growth 353
cT
Equilibrium representing poverty trap threshold 355
cp Cost per unit change in technology quality 362
ctot
p Total cost to change poverty trap threshold by changing p 362
ctot
g Total cost to change poverty trap threshold by changing g 362
cg Cost per unit change in growth 362
CDI Community development index 486

Notation and Acronyms xxxviii
CDIi Community development index for alternative i 486
cm(k) Maintenance costs at time k 610
d Capital depreciation rate 352
∆cT
p Change from existing poverty trap threshold due to a change in p 362
∆cT
g Change from existing poverty trap threshold due to a change in g 362
∆cT
d Desired change in the poverty trap threshold 362
E Parameter used to model upper limit on daily spending 74
EJP Environmental justice policy 247
EFA Education for All 319
i Additive uncertainty for preference 489
ei
(k) Education level of individual i at step k 616
f Nonlinear part of production function 352
fij For technology i, an assessment of feature j 480
fmin
ij Minimum value of criterion j for alternative i 483
fmax
ij Maximum value of criterion j for alternative i 483
f0
ij Nominal value of criterion j for alternative i 483
fb
ij Technology feature assessment relative to a base-line 490
GDP Gross domestic product 10
GNP Gross national product 10
GNI Gross national income 10
Gindex Gini index, a measure of inequality 12
GII Gender inequality index 15
GDI Gender development index 15

Notation and Acronyms xxxix
GUI Graphical user interface 89
g Rate of population growth 352
gi Relative portion of price for individual i 611
HDI Human development index 14
H-STEM Humanitarian STEM education 552
hi
(k) Health of individual i at step k 616
IHDI Inequality-adjusted human development index 14
I Parameter quantifying inequality for a small community 239
IT Information technology 280
Ji
(k) Measure of financial well-being at k 231
k Step k 91
K Carrying capacity for renewable resource 91
Kui Individual i’s utilization carrying capacity 246
MPI Multidimensional poverty index 15
MDG Millennium development goal 35
MPC Model predictive control 409
m(k) Amount of maintenance costs at time k 610
md(k) Desired maintenance funds at time k 610
NGO Nongovernmental organization xviii
N The number of individuals (e.g., in a community) 77
N(t) Number of adopters of a technology 369
PPP Purchasing power parity 11
PID Proportional, integral, derivative controller 80

Notation and Acronyms xl
P Change in generosity parameter G voted on 231
S Multiplier on spending on self 232
p Quality of technology for a production function 352
∆p Change from nominal p value 362
∆g Change from nominal g value 362
pr(k) Variable representing provisioning 375
PAR Participatory action research 438
Pi Quality of technology i 485
Pb
i Quality of technology relative to base-line 490
PTD Participatory technology development 531
PSB Participatory social business 595
pij(k) Resource j price for user i (with one resource, pi(k)) 606
r Renewable resource growth rate 91
G Generosity parameter 217
rui
Individual i’s rate of growth of utilization 246
RCT Randomized controlled trial 298
Rs Safe resource level 378
rij(k) Resource j use by user i (with one resource, ri(k)) 605
r(k) Resource level at step k 616
STEM Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics xi
SDG Sustainable development goal 35
s National savings rate 352

Notation and Acronyms xli
si
s(k) Total self-spending by i at k 616
si
h(k) Total spending by individual i on health at step k 616
si
e(k) Total spending by individual i on education at step k 616
SCDI Sustainable community development index 627
TVET Technical and vocational education and training 326
t Time, continuous 352
UN United Nations 9
UNDP UN Development Program 20
UNESCO UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization 21
U(k) Total utilization at step k 91
ui(k) Individual utilization at step k for user i 91
uc(k) Individual utilization limit 247
vi
w(k) Variable income for individual i at step k 616
vi
h(k) Health degradations of individual i at step k 620
vi
e(k) Effects of poor health on getting less education 621
WHO UN World Health Organization 21
WVS World Values Survey 47
wj Importance (priority) of technology feature j 483
wr
j Relative importance (priority) of technology feature j 484
wmin
j Minimum value of importance j 484
wmax
j Maximum value of importance j 484
w0
j Nominal value of importance j 484
wi
(k) Wealth of individual i at step k 616

Notation and Acronyms xlii
wi
t(k) Total wealth of individual i at step k 620

Chapter 1
Poverty, Sustainability, and
Culture
Chapter Contents
1.1 World Poverty and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Poverty in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.3 Sustainable Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.4 Culture and Global Competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.5 Engineers’ Role in Humanitarianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
1.6 Models, Dynamics, and Analysis of Poverty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
1.7 Homework Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
1.8 Annotated Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The
poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We
must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
Mother Teresa of Kolkata
Poverty is the worst form of violence.
Mahatma Gandhi

2
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power
to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.
John F. Kennedy
He is now rising from affluence to poverty.
Mark Twain
Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and
where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to
oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Frederick Douglass
I thank fate for having made me born poor. Poverty taught me the true value of
the gifts useful to life.
Anatole France
The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.
Adam Smith
Why is the world in its present state of wide-spread poverty and under-
development? Why does a particular individual have such a low income, low
educational achievement, or such a short unhealthy life? Why is it still the
case that what philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) said about life being
“solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” is still true for billions of people?
Indeed:
1. There is incredibly deep and wide-spread suffering in the world with a
magnitude so large that it is difficult to understand.
2. There are grave violations of human dignity, such as people living on
less than $1 per day, being malnourished, clinically depressed, or disease-
ridden with no chance of getting those problems fixed.
3. There are billions of people who are not reaching any real level of human
fulfillment due to the problems listed above, the lack of educational attain-
ment, and the lack of anything more than menial labor for a job, if they
can even get any kind of job. Lack of opportunity can be very difficult

1.1 World Poverty and Development 3
to understand if you and everyone you know have always had excellent
opportunities and upward mobility.
4. Connected with these issues is the vast waste of human talent, the brilliant
people who have no chance to develop into an engineer, scientist, mathe-
matician, doctor, poet, writer, dancer, artist, etc. (e.g., I have personally
witnessed the incredible waste of engineering talent in the developing world
as there was no opportunity, for instance, for an individual to exercise her
engineering talent). Poverty hinders the impact of peoples’ brilliance. It
may be that the cure to cancer could be incubated in the mind of a person
making less than $1 per day who has no chance achieving her goals; what
a waste for humanity!
5. If these are not good enough reasons to try to solve the poverty and
development problems, should the developed world at least try to make the
bottom 80% rich, healthy, and well-educated so they can understand and
buy the developed world’s products so they can make more money? Can
the developed world do better than that? For instance, can the developed
world promote more trade, and fair trade, with the developing world? Can
multinational corporations stop exploiting and polluting excessively, and
start helping with sustainable development in more ways?
Much of what people in the developed world take for granted is simply not
available to most people in the world (e.g., potable water, sanitation, and elec-
tricity). Moreover, as you will see from the US case, that even in the “richest
country in the world” there are still serious poverty problems.
1.1 World Poverty and Development
Some think of poverty as the situation where basic human needs are not being
met. What are “needs”? There is a whole array of human needs, with an early
quantification given in the 1940s by Maslow in (Maslow, 1943) as:
1. Physiological;
2. Safety;
3. Love/belonging;
4. Esteem; and
5. Self-actualization.
Maslow ordered the needs such that the most basic one is listed first, and so
on. Physiological needs include air, water, food, clothing, and shelter. Safety
includes security from war, criminal violence, family violence, and child abuse.
Some would include economic and health security (protection against ailments
and diseases). Love/belonging includes friendship, intimacy, family, etc. Esteem

1.1 World Poverty and Development 4
includes the need to be respected, accepted, valued by others, status, recogni-
tion, fame, prestige, and attention. It also includes the need for self-respect.
Self-actualization needs include the need to realize one’s own potential. One
need emerges as the one before it is fully satisfied.
There are, however, criticisms to Maslow’s view as it is not generally cul-
turally sensitive, is not properly set in the context of specific societies (e.g.,
individualistic or collectivist societies), and is not welcoming to the individual’s
own ranking of their needs. For instance, there are some people who rank en-
Individual needs are
defined by
individuals, not
others.
tertainment, spiritual, or cultural events (e.g., weddings or funerals) very high
and indeed will sacrifice some basic physiological needs for these. Such views
are to be respected, of course. What right does one human have to say what
another human needs? Of course, if a person is not meeting some needs and
this adversely affects someone else (e.g., a child) that can be a problem. Also,
if someone has a severe mental illness and cannot take care of themselves, that
is also another matter. Toyama discusses a number of aspects of Maslow’s work
in the context of development in (Toyama, 2015).
In this book, you will see the issue of the definition of needs and human
well-being arise in a number of contexts. For instance, we will consider standard
metrics for whether needs are met such as the “Human Development Index.”
Or, we will consider in social justice frameworks the closely related idea of hu-
man rights and human fulfillment. When considering development strategies
you will see that different approaches focus on different needs. In Chapter 4,
and in particular in Section 4.3, we will discuss a strategy to come to under-
stand a community’s needs and resources so that sustainable technologies can
be designed to help meet these needs.
Next, we will take and up-close view of situations in which some basic human
needs are not being met.
1.1.1 Understanding World Poverty: A Close Up View
Living and Talking With People
There are many documentaries or videos on poverty on the internet. Here,
You must get to
know the
low-income people
up close, and in a
respectful manner.
it is suggested that a specific form of documentary be used, the one where
someone (or a team): (i) lives with a low-income community and films it; or (ii)
visits a low-income community and interviews people about living conditions
and challenges. Consider the following three videos, where it is best if you view
these with a friend, your family, or class and discuss the issues during or after
watching:
Guatemala: About 56 minutes long (56:00), at Peña Blanca (west of Guatemala
City, near Lake Atitlán), Summer 2010, video entitled
Living on One Dollar
(there is a charge to view the video) and their TED talk. Also, see their “Change
Series” (which is a series of pieces of “Living on One Dollar” covering the main

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