U class looks to improve water access in India

Between writing papers, preparing presentations and cramming for tests, most college students have gotten to know and dread the all-nighter. But when it comes to one of his classes, civil engineering graduate student Pete Daniels said he and some of his classmates have actually started looking forward to trading in sleep for homework.

Daniels is one of 12 University of Minnesota students taking a pilot course developed by the nonprofit Acara Institute that aims to get multidisciplinary, cross-cultural teams of students working to solve global problems. This semester, six teams from three colleges and one team of high school students took on the broad challenge of improving water access in the slums of Mumbai , India.

Each team is working with industry mentors and student counterparts in Mumbai to understand slum residents’ water-access issues, narrow their focus to a particular aspect of the problem and develop a sustainable business model for a product or service that remedies it.

Friday, the three University teams presented their solutions for the first time. Connie Rutledge , associate director of Carlson Ventures Enterprise , and several business students in the program offered critiques for the teams to consider as they refine their solutions and business plans.

At the semester’s end, their efforts will be rewarded with more than a letter grade — the team with the best of the seven proposals wins a trip to Mumbai, where they’ll explore implementing their solution.

Tuesday night, Daniels and his three teammates were discussing which statistics, photos and calculations they needed to back up their proposed solution, a rainwater harvesting system.

According to the “Waterlink” team’s presentation, water from Mumbai’s municipal taps is only available for several hours in the morning to Mumbai slum residents, and they have to walk and wait in line for it.

The team proposed installing gutters to direct monsoon-season rain water off slum dwelling roofs into existing backyard pits and lining those pits with concrete. This would give residents another water source for things like bathing and cooking, which may decrease the time they spend collecting municipal tap water, the team said.

Other University teams proposed a water-pasteurization indicator and a community-managed water sanitization and storage source.

When 3M business development manager Erin Binder (who’s since been rehired) got laid off last fall, she and Fred Rose, Honeywell technology and strategy director and founder of High Tech Kids , another local nonprofit, started talking about what they’d do if they could do anything they wanted. Binder’s dream job, she said, would be to work on start-ups that address difficult social issues that matter to her. That’s what the class is meant to help students do.

Though the class is unusual, it’s the kind of thing Rose thinks schools and students are hungry for. After he and Binder came up with the idea in the fall, they were able to get classes set up quickly at the University and institutes of technology in Chicago and Mumbai.

It’s set up in the University’s civil engineering department as a three-credit special topics class and taught by professor John Gulliver . Instead of lecturing, he organizes guest speakers to talk about things like product design and business planning.

It will count as a technical elective for undergraduates, Gulliver said, but may or may not count toward graduate students’ degree programs. The credits don’t matter so much to public health graduate student Katarina Grande . “I was just so excited about the concept of the competition,” she said, “that I didn’t really care if it didn’t apply to my degree.”

Still, Rose said over time, they’ll work on getting the class integrated into different programs’ curricula.

“That’s definitely a challenge,” he said. Another is funding. They have some from Cargill , Binder said, which will likely sponsor the winning team’s trip, but the program’s mostly running on time donations from her, Rose and other volunteers.

But they’ll need to hire some staff if they’re to expand the class, Binder said. They plan to add one more partner school in India for the fall semester course, and in the spring, Binder would like to see it opened up to as many as 10 universities — but that will require more funding.