 Next up the now legendary impact engineered awards program where some of the most distinguished members of the engineering community honor some of their most accomplished colleagues. And to guide us through it. It's my pleasure to introduce Cara Miller. Many of you know Dr Miller from the column she writes for the Boston Globe. About the latest big ideas in research for the past 10 years. She hosted innovation hub, which aired on public radio stations all over the country. Those of us at ASME are grateful to Cara for serving on the advisory committee of the Lemelson Foundation, which is a major supporter of I show. Please welcome Dr Cara Miller. Hi, it's great to be here. Thanks so much for having me. You know, I talked to a friend of mine who's an engineer in advance of doing this and he, he pointed out to me that so often. We don't realize the real impact that engineers have the ripples that go out from the things they do and he, he gave me this example he said, you know, lifespans in the US just about double between 1900 and 2000. And there's almost one profession to thank for that change. And it's, it's not just the engineers created, innovated things, physical creations were inventors, but it's also the implementation right the systems that came out of those innovations that had that sort of big big ripple impact. And that's really part of the reason I'm so excited to be with you today because of that, that idea of the power of impact. My own life for the last dozen or so years has been about telling stories that come from science that come from academia that come from engineers, and bringing them to a larger public. One of the things that so has been so striking to me is that very often the scientists the engineers who are there, they're so anxious to tell their stories. And yet, as they aim to tell those stories, the people on the other end, who are there to receive their stories the they are also anxious to receive the stories and yet the two hands reach out and sometimes I think it's hard for them to connect. So, I think one of the great things about the people that you're going to hear about today that they get that stage that they get that stage to tell their story. And they get that that impact that they're making amplified. And the people that we're going to hear about today they didn't just build physical stuff though the you're certainly going to hear some of that. They've also changed our mindset about who we are right they they help redesign. And this is what the best engineers do. And they help redesign how we think about where do we belong what can we pull off who are we engineering really shifts those expectations. And I think not enough people realize that probably every person sitting out there has a friend or a family member who when they hear the engineer, you can see like the curtains go up the wall goes up and they're like yeah I can't access that I do. I'm not going to understand anything that you're going to say. And so I think more and more telling the stories of invention and innovation are so crucial. It's something I have been doing for a long time and I hope to keep doing. Bringing those stories to a wider audience allows people to really access the amazing work that so many people that we've been hearing from earlier today and that we'll hear from later in the hour are doing. I want to come to the first, a first award which I think is speaks exactly to what I've been talking about sort of making those connections which are so important for people on both ends. To present the academic ally award. I'm going to turn it over to Kendra Sharp she's the head of the Office of International Science and Engineering at the National Science Foundation Kendra over to you. Oregon State University. And for over a decade now I've been part of the academic community supporting engineering for global development. In doing so I've had the chance to follow a range of academic efforts that support engineering for global development, innovation and social entrepreneurship. As many of you know there's often a tension between traditional engineering education and the curricular flexibility non traditional approaches and emphasis on interdisciplinarity and partnerships required in this space. The tension and the many associated hurdles, the time and energy required to grow and sustain these programs cannot be understated. Add to that the challenges of working directly with community partners, offering highly time and resource intensive experiential learning elements, and well, the work is both intensely challenging and intensely rewarding. Through the course of the pandemic the need for research that addresses pressing societal challenges at both local and global scales has become even clearer. Many inequities have been laid even more bare, but the current generation of college age students gives me hope. Many want to work on addressing climate change, or poverty, or food, water or energy security, or other challenges. These types of academic opportunities are critical for their development. And the distinct privilege of serving now as a senior leader at NSF, where we not only drive our strategy for global engagement, but also collaborate with colleagues across the US government and with our international counterparts. Increasingly themes that emerge in NSF strategy or mirroring what we've been doing in engineering for global development for years, whether it's having a global focus or an emphasis on addressing societal problems, or integrating social scientists and collaborating with community groups, or even work where communities themselves drive the research questions and work where equity, inclusivity and social justice are part and parcel of what we do and how we do it. I like to think that other parts of the research community are just touching up to what this community has been doing all along, namely pushing the boundaries of pedagogy and traditional engineering education and research. Of course that's a bias here. Even so I'm very proud of our share research and education community. With that, please join me in congratulating Penn State on receiving the academic ally award. This is an award that recognizes visionary academic institutions, and their innovative pedagogies and research, their partnerships with ASME, and a shared mission to train the future workforce together standing up and cultivating cutting edge programs and engineering schools as a difficult proposition. Penn State's College of Engineering has demonstrated a long term commitment to social innovation and ongoing support for the program and its faculty. So thank you for everything that you do for your students, your faculty, the broader community and our shared profession. And with that I'm very pleased to present this award to Justin Schwartz, Dean of Engineering at Penn State University, and Esther Adiambo Obonio. The critical role that engineering has in advancing humanity, and thank you mostly to Impact Engineering and all of those involved in our selection for this prestigious award. On behalf of the Penn State College of Engineering, we gratefully accept the academic ally award. More importantly, we thank you for establishing and amplifying the Engineering for Change Research Fellowship program. We have enthusiastically supported the program since it started, and to partner with E4C to make measurable progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Much of our work is channeled through our Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship Program, or HESI, and more recently through our Global Building Network, we formed as a partnership between Penn State and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, and led by Professor Esther Obonio, implementing solutions for the built environment around the globe. Critically, Penn State students and faculty who participate in both of these programs are not limited to just the College of Engineering. We welcome all students and faculty contributors from all across all of our campuses. As we all know, we need all perspectives and expertise to innovate and implement solutions. With participants from every college and every facet of Penn State and beyond, we're enthusiastically supporting projects that apply engineering in ways that improve life for all. We are engineering for humanity, and we are proud to partner with E4C in this pursuit. I am personally especially thankful for the leadership of Dr. Esther Obonio, who previously directed HESI, and who currently directs the Global Building Network. Professor Obonio, would you like to say a few words as well? Thank you, Dishwads, and thank you, Kendra. I'll briefly echo Dishwads' gratitude. The E4C program is facilitating crucially important work, and we are proud and thankful to be strong supporters. We are especially proud of our E4C Penn State fellows, including Julio Diate, who research the repurposing of cardboard waste to building homes, and Molly Ackman, and her team who worked on developing leading edge tools for low-cost diabetes screening. I also had the pleasure of partnering with E4C to mentor and advise two teams of E4C fellows. In 2020, Sung Wee Bang and Julio Diate designed and developed concepts for resilient low-income housing in Kenya and Tanzania. In 2021, Tiffany Leung and Ali Ghazbian advanced these concepts through examining barriers and enablers who are scaling the deployment of affordable strategies for resilient housing in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This work is part of a Belmont Forum project on disaster risk reduction that is partly funded by the National Science Foundation. The output and outcomes that have come out of the work of E4C fellows is now being used to develop evidence for policymaking and collaboration with other universities and the research team of Tanzania's Office of Prime Minister. They are in charge of disaster risk management for the whole country. E4C fellows are generating knowledge for advancing technologies, protecting the planet, and also saving lives. All these incredible feats are exemplified by the outputs and the outcomes of the Penn State's partnership with Engineering for Change and ASME. We appreciate the recognition and extend our congratulations to our fellow impact-engineered honorees. Thank you very much. Esther and Justin, thank you so much. That was great. And it's a perfect, actually, lead-in to the next award. You know, I've been talking this whole time about making connections, and so are you. And the next award is the Ecosystem Builder Award. To present that, I'm going to introduce Beatrice Morage, who will present the award. She's a senior manager in sustainability at Phillips. Beatrice, over to you. The community has a special pace in my heart for one main reason only. I'm an engineer's daughter. So in that sense, I've been brought up around the engineering community, and it's always a pleasure to be in this particular kind of sessions. So just get into it. This award celebrates the individuals who stand as pillars of success and evolution. This award goes to those who lay the foundation for growth, whether it's advocating for the sector, fostering key relationships, or cultivating diverse professional networks. The work they do is vital, and this award speaks to their substantial value. So the winner of this award has played a fundamental role in the ASME iShow, starting as a judge in iShow Kenya in 2015, and continuing annually. As the ASME team expanded its program support to other tech incubators, this particular person lent his expertise to working with social ventures in the Climate Innovation Center Network, and connecting his UN-habited colleagues to the E4C fellowship program to advance sustainability goals. He has been a TALIS champion and stepped up as a strategic advisor for the EGD committee, where he continues to bring his unique insights and global perspective to the table. May I add that this is also the same individual who introduced me into the ASME community as an iShow judge and mentor, and I always look forward to this particular event, especially for the different countries. We continue to partner together with this individual in our respective organizations. I like to say the individual belongs to a sister organization where we work to just increase access to care for underserved communities across the world. Mostly looking at three pillars, digital and technology innovation, sustainable business models, and ecosystem engagement. Without further ado, allow me to drumroll, introduce the winner, Dr. Edin Saruk Baha. It's a true honor to receive this award, and I'm very much thankful and a big, big shout out to all those who always have been ready and willing to team up to innovate and support innovation for the global development, and collectively aim to improve access and provide access to quality care all over the world. So coming in words actually short, but thank you ASME, thank you iShow, engineer for change, engineer for global development, United Nations, Philips, Philips Foundation, Beatrice, all others actually I have worked with along this journey for being the platform to make this happen. Thank you. Thank you so much. You know, it's amazing to hear the kind of work that people are doing in to win these awards and the kind of change that you're having and you see this this power of this ecosystem to to push this change around. We're going to move to a different kind of award now, but also kind of an ecosystem award. And this is an award that is looking at the woman champion powering impact. To present that award I'm going to turn it over to Carlotta Arthur, she's director of the Henry Lewis Foundation's clear booth news program for women and stem Carlotta over to you. Thank you so much. It is a pleasure to be here. It's with great pleasure that I present the women champion powering impact award to Dr. Carol doll, former executive director of the limelson Foundation. A recognition of bold trailblazers. This award is presented to women at the forefront of technology for good by putting the spotlight on talented leaders committed to engineering global development. This is an award from ASMEs commitment to achieving gender equity in the social sector. Carol's faith in the value of ASMEs I show and what it could contribute to impact invention was catalytic for I show when it was launched as an international innovation center in 2015. As executive director of the limelson Foundation, Carol, Carol worked tireless tirelessly to advance the foundation's mission of improving lives through invention, including supporting equitable pathways to invention cultivating the next generation of inventors and innovation talent champion championing an invention education and catalyzing a diverse and inclusive movement through invent ed. Prior to joining the limelson Foundation Carol served as the founding director of the global health discovery program at the bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, leading the development of grand challenges initiatives, innovation programs which have been replicated around previous roles include vice president for strategic partnerships at biospect Inc. Now path path works diagnostics and founding director of the office of technology and industrial relations at the National Cancer Institute. This is just a small snapshot of Carol's trailblazing leadership. As director for the Claire booth loose program for women in stem at the Henry loose foundation. The US is largest private funder of women's science engineering and mathematics higher education, which also promotes equity diversity and inclusion throughout the ecosystem stem ecosystem. I'm a great admirer of Carol and her trailblazing work to drive change in the stem ecosystem for gender equity and positive social impact. Carol, it is an honor to have the opportunity to work with you. You are an inspiration to those of us who promote diverse and an innovative stem talent and inclusive innovation and innovation and invention pathways. I'm thrilled to present you with the women champion powering impact award. Thank you for honoring me with this significant award. It means so much coming to me from as me an organization that so clearly shares my belief that invention and innovation can solve humanities biggest challenges and improve lives in communities both in the US and around the world. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that any impact that I've contributed to has been because of my amazing colleagues that I've worked with over my career first in government at the Gates Foundation and most recently during my decade long tenure as the executive director of the Lemelson Foundation, and their support for improving lives through invention continues, including sponsoring I show. It's been while at Lemelson that I really came to know the work of as me in fostering innovation to address the sustainable development goals or SDGs, as we became significant in the as me's I show. The engineering for global development programs like E for C and I show that we just heard about the new I show idea lab or having a measurable impact on quality of life and meeting the UN SGGs, supporting inventors and would be entrepreneurs and taking their ideas to reality and impact. I also believe that the full creative potential of the global population to address humanities greatest challenges has not yet been tapped, and so we need to advocate for fostering greater equity in engineering, both in terms of increasing access to the path of invention and entrepreneurship, but also increasing access to the inventions that engineers create, especially in underserved communities, and I know those are values that are shared by as me. I'm very grateful for this award and coming from such an important institution. And for all of you here today, who share the vision of impact engineering. Again, my deepest thanks. Thanks Carol. I'll just add Carol is also a special person to me I've been involved with Lemelson Foundation for a long time. And I remember when we first started having conversations. We had a coffee at MIT when we were at conferences. She really strikes you with her passion for as she talked about solutions. And I, you know, another story just about women in this field, I remember, and the sort of power of lifting up women is I remember talking to a woman who had been in a state science fair. She had gotten very high up in the science fair, and she was working on reengineering battery technology, and a one of the people judging said to her, you know, some girl like you I don't think it could have done this research, and of course she had indeed done the research. It had a major profound impact on her she did still pursue engineering. But it made her doubt herself more. And, you know, you, it may it drove home to me the importance of having mentors, having people having connections that can help lift up that network of women. And continuing with this theme of connection and impact on other people. I'm going to chit it over to our next award which focuses on both organizational power, and on sustainable development which keeps coming back today, and here to present that next award is John Wayne from UN CR John over to you. Thank you Dr Miller, and thank you impact engineering colleagues for an excellent program of presentations this evening. This impact driven award is in recognition of organizations who understand the vast impact of technology based solutions. This award celebrates those who are committed to working to achieve the UN sustainable development goals. As we approach 2030. It becomes increasingly clear that providing solutions to underserved markets and communities will require patient investment and a hands on approach. The Autodesk Foundation has a history of patient investment and visionary programming, supporting diverse organizations that work on the front lines of social impact. The relationship with engineering for change, our extended family. It started in 2016 and has grown into an impact program that yielded fellows such as Dima who joined me on the virtual stage earlier. These will be the technicians of the future that will carry this visionary message forward. Personally I first came across the Autodesk Foundation in 2016 when I was providing global surge capacity for HQ. We were developing a settlement planning toolkit a collection of tools and products that would guide and support young engineers in the field as they carry out the important work, developing shelter solutions and planning settlements. I plucked up the courage to approach the Autodesk Foundation and asked them for a couple of Autodesk licenses that would support these young engineers in the field. To my immense surprise, they came back with a fabulously generous offer and today we have over 150 Autodesk licenses assigned to engineers, architects and other technicians in a multitude of countries throughout the globe. The demand for these licenses is growing and growing to a point where we now have to prioritize and we ask colleagues why they need them so we can assign licenses. It's been an immensely generous contribution coming to millions and millions of dollars. In addition, the Autodesk Foundation supported us with some training programs because these are sophisticated tools. This is cutting edge software that we do need to enhance the capacity of colleagues who were possibly never used such tools. So it was a generous contribution to give us additional technical capacity. We also brought the Autodesk Foundation to the largest refugee camp in the world, Kutubolong Camp in Bangladesh. Bobby Casey, who's been a great friend and mentor from the Autodesk Foundation, went all the way to Kutubolong and they developed an inspirational video that in 29 won a gold medal tele award. And I would strongly suggest all of you online to just have a look at that video because it clearly outlines the work we as settlement planners and engineers have to do in the field. UNHCR estimates that there are 84 million forcefully displaced people in the world today. 20 million of those are refugees. An incredible 50 million of those are what we term IDPs, internally displaced persons. My current role is the senior shelter cluster coordinator in Yemen. I am just back from a mission today actually to the west and south coast of Yemen. We're the shifting front lines in this six year conflict has led to a new displacement of over 50,000 people. We are doing site assessments and we are coming up with emergency shelter solutions. The need for engineering support, the need for technical support is immense to improve the conditions that I have seen over the last few days. UNHCR is committed to finding creative and innovative solutions to support and enhance settlement and refugee problems around the world. We are facing new challenges every year that requires constant search for innovative technologies and new technical approaches. We need new partnerships with international agencies, other organizations, academia, private sector. This relationship with engineering for change has been hugely beneficial. Champions such as the Autodesk Foundation are doing incredible work. Without their continued support, we would struggle with a lot of these complex technical challenges that we face. It is therefore with great pleasure and deep personal satisfaction to present this award to the executive director of the Autodesk Foundation, Mr. Joe Spicer. Congratulations, Joe. Joe, it looks like you're muted. I was saying some really brilliant wonderful things so you'll forgive me if I'm off cadence. Thank you so much and we are so grateful to be a part of this community, excuse me, with AME, E4C. I remember first coming across the organization when I took the helm at the Autodesk Foundation, and we've had a really fruitful, engaged relationship over the last seven or eight years now. Many of the presenters and award winners today, including Carol, John, Iana, Bridges to Prosperity, these are the people in organizations that we've been partnering with for many years, and it really is a wonderful community. And so thank you. We're incredibly grateful. Specifically, the research fellowship program is an excellent example of the type of work that E4C does, and one that aligns perfectly with the Autodesk Foundation's mission, which is to support the design and creation of innovative solutions to the world's advancing social and environmental challenges. The nonprofits and startups that the Autodesk Foundation invest in benefit greatly from the expertise of the engineers, the designers that come through this program. And you've seen these examples today, for instance, with Bridges to Prosperity. We've renewed our support for this work. We are, I am very personally excited to see what innovations emerge from the next cohort. And thank you for having us as a part of this community. Thank you for this award and keep up the fantastic work to create the sustainable, resilient and equitable future through engineering that we need to see. Thank you so much. You know, it's amazing to hear John and then Joe talk about the problem, this problem of 84 million displaced people, and then how do you bring to bear expertise in engineering, how do you couple that with need, how do you loop in both innovation and how do you sort of push that innovation out and scale it up. You know, I look at the lower thirds of these of the award ceremony and this idea of engineering for change and that is, that's really it is like how do you bring, you know, how do you have this equation of both engineering, and, and need and how do you bring it to change. I want to get into our final award of the hour, which is the change maker award I know people have been voting on this, I think, almost right up till the last minute here. So this is one that that's been changing. And to present that award I'm going to turn it over to Neil Yo, he's the CEO and founder of 1.5 Neil. Hello. Yes. Hi, my name is Neil Yo. I'm the CEO and founder of 1.5. I myself I'm based out of New York but originally from Australia. I was a robotics engineer from undergrad and I totally understand how important it is to have engineers solving the most critical challenges throughout my career. I ended up like finding my way to climate change after working in the oil and gas industry and seeing how engineers can also contribute to a lot of bad. So I'm just absolutely wonderfully inspired by engineers here that are trying to do something more impactful in this world. In 1.5 we we tried to democratize access to experts we work with climate technology early stage startups in the services and also finance sectors. So if you ever looking for experts where the entrepreneurs and residents trying to help commercialize the next generation of impactful startups and solutions for the change maker award. This award is nominated by you and selected by you this award highlights the achievements and recognizes the potential for engineers, emerging leaders and their organizations. First of all, thank you for everyone that voted and the for shortlisted awardees like all your work is critical as engineers. We all deserve this word really, really much a lot more than anyone else here. So with that, this year's change maker award is we had a bit of a foreshadowing curibit co-founded by Rashab and I'm sorry, sorry. The team is leveraging technology to change the way mental health is addressed in India and curibit provides exposure therapy by virtual reality to those affected by mental health disorders under the supervision of mental health professionals. So without further ado, Rashab, I'm on over to you. Well, a big thank you to our team and everyone that saw potential in our idea of advancing mental health treatment using immersive technologies. Thank you to ask me and E4C and a special thank you to the resolution project and our resolution mentors for pushing us towards this opportunity. We are honored to be held alongside such wonderful nominees. Everyone here is a change maker, not just the award winners, but also the organizers, speakers and the audience. I believe we have all won today because we are all here to celebrate something amazing. Yeah, we've had a long journey, but there is still a long way to go. We want to make sure that our project is based in extensive research and ethics. So it's really important for us to understand the sensitivity and the nuances of what we're dealing with. We're at the starting point of our career, but we're excited to have more impact as we move forward. And I hope together with all the teams we can serve as an inspiration for others to convert their impactful ideas into reality. And once again, we're really grateful for the award. Thank you so much. I mean myself here. Thank you so much, you know, it's also it feels like such a timely, you know, focus is the idea of focusing on mental health, especially coming out of the last couple of years and to think about engineering a solution or a way in to help a lot of people with mental health seems like a particularly important thing right now. It's been an amazing lineup of winners this hour. It's been a privilege for me to be here today to hear about the work of so many amazing folks to hear about as you have the impact they're having the stories that they've told us about that impact, whether it's on water delivery systems or medicine delivery or women in engineering or lifting up communities which in some ways everybody is doing or making change in a very sustainable way. Thanks so much for having me here. What a pleasure. Congratulations to all the winners and I'm going to hand back over the reins. Tiana. Thank you, Kara. You've been phenomenal. Also navigating some clips here and there. Thank you so much. Obviously a pro. So congratulations to all of our award winners today and a huge thank you to also all of our award presenters who took the time to prepare their remarks and and join us today. Each of you in your own way you're all true champions of sustainable development. Kara also I just want to note I've been a fan of yours for some time and it's a real treat to actually see you in sort of in real life to your face. In real life. In real life maybe. Yeah, exactly. Instead of just hearing your words on the radio, it's now been a pleasure.