Academics

Middlesex University students join Engineering Leadership initiative

Penn State engineering students Hannah Goldberg, left, and Joshua Savitz meet virtually with their Corvinus and Taibah teammates to discuss a shower handle they are designing for developing countries. Credit: Stefanie Tomlinson / Penn StateCreative Commons

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – An engineering course that gives Penn State students an opportunity to collaborate in international virtual teams has expanded to include graduate students from Middlesex University's Business School in London.

The International Leadership of Engineering and Development (ILEAD) course is offered through the College of Engineering's Leadership Development Program.

Created in 2005, it combines Engineering Leadership Development Program students at Penn State with business students at Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary and engineering students at Taibah University in Medina, Saudi Arabia.

Instructor of the ILEAD course Andras Gordon said he is always looking to get more interested partners involved. Each spring, semester project assignments for the class are arranged through individuals, businesses, organizations and universities in United States and elsewhere in the world.

Last fall he reached out to Simon Best, senior lecturer in Middlesex University's Business School, and invited his students to work with the teams. Best had been involved with Global Entrepreneurship Week activities at Penn State and was seeking additional ways to collaborate with the University.

Gordon recalled, "Simon and I thought it would be a great opportunity for Middlesex students to propose a few projects for ILEAD class teams to complete and to provide feedback to international student teams on their progress, as well as their approach to tackling the proposed challenges."

One of the problems proposed by Middlesex students was assigned to a team in the ILEAD class this semester, which turned out to be an unexpected challenge for international student teams, according to Gordon. Middlesex students monitored progress of some of the seven project teams.

Best said it is important for his students to learn about the innovation side of business. "I teach a module that is designed to help students understand what innovation is, how to make it happen and the value of it. Their involvement in these virtual global teams will help them from a management perspective."

At the end of the semester, students may choose to travel to Hungary to present their final reports and meet their collaborators in person. Penn State and Taibah University students from this semester's class will arrive to Budapest by May 9 for a week at Corvinus University.

This spring Penn State students are working on a variety of assignments that encompass solution proposals for individuals, communities and industry.

A team that includes chemical engineering senior and Schreyer Scholar David Hughes is developing a solar pump that will provide access to water from wells in rural areas in Saudi Arabia.

Hughes explained, "Grid electricity is very expensive to build in those remote areas. Where there's no grid infrastructure, they usually use diesel water pumps which are costly to maintain and not environmentally friendly. Each of our small-scale solar pumps will potentially provide water for basic needs such as cooking, drinking, cleaning and showering."

Dan Rose, a junior in supply chain and information systems in Penn State's Smeal College of Business, and his team are developing Neticle, software that will analyze text and comments for consumers' opinions.

The Schreyer Scholar explained, "The software uses keywords to determine whether the comments are positive or negative and it can then generate reports based on the large amounts of analyzed text. The founders of the company have stated that it works with 85 percent accuracy, which is very close to human accuracy level."

He said their product could help companies better understand how their customers feel about products and services so that they can work towards a higher level of satisfaction.

Mechanical engineering junior Heather Svec is working on a fitness app for mobile devices, a project proposed by Middlesex students.

Gordon pointed out that Svec and her international team had to be quite creative in keeping collaboration and technical work on track.

Svec said initially the app, which will include exercise tips, healthy recipes and a BMI calculator, was to be created for parents in Saudi Arabia, where the rate of childhood obesity is high. However partway through the semester she and her teammates agreed that the app could be useful to a broader population. "So we decided to make it a global initiative."

Mechanical engineering senior Hannah Goldberg and mechanical engineering sophomore and Schreyer Scholar Joshua Savitz are working on a product for Hungarian company 5L.

Savitz said, "5L makes a shower head called 5Litres that uses only five liters of water and has advanced features such as WiFi. We are designing a portable shower handle called a P5 that is more affordable and meant for developing countries."

He explained that the handle is hand operated so it doesn’t require electricity. "Our product will also improve hygiene because it will clean the water."

Goldberg added, "We hope to make the filter system strong enough that residents could also drink the water."

Kevin Magee, a senior in mechanical engineering; Ryan Burke, a junior in aerospace engineering; and their team are planning a community-based construction company on Gonâve Island, Haiti.

Burke said, "After the 2010 earthquake, the population of Haiti decreased by one third. Now many people are returning and there is no heavy machinery to rebuild."

Magee added, "Most of the infrastructure that does exist is not structurally sound. Our company could build more stable homes and businesses."

Their team's project is sponsored by Roots of Development, a nonprofit which helps impoverished communities acquire the resources and organizational skills they need to manage their own development.

Mechanical engineering senior Benjamin Visnesky and his team are creating a device that can sense and control the temperature and humidity of an industrial environment and decide how the building's climate control system should respond.

Their project sponsor is Raghied Atta, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Taibah University.

Visnesky said, "Climate control systems exist in just about every building these days. However, if we were to expand upon the scope of work a bit, it would be possible to add in aspects such as smart control, where the system might automatically use less energy during noncritical times, or internet connectivity to monitor the current energy usage on the local area’s grid."

Middlesex University student Festus Louis helped monitor and analyze Visnesky's progress throughout the semester. "It was a little complicated, as a business student, to try to understand the mechanical aspect of the project," Louis explained.

Despite that minor challenge, he said overall the experience was beneficial. "As a business student now integrating innovation into my human capital, it was important for me to understand the level and dimension of innovations out there and also the process of innovation."

Best noted that in today's global environment, communication and collaboration are essential. "Inventors and innovators don’t work in isolation. If we aren't offering opportunities like this for our students, we are doing them a disservice."

Gordon and Best plan to further assess the joint experience at the end of the semester and explore options for future collaboration.

Last Updated June 15, 2015