New funding will support an Australian-first project that brings together engineering students and diverse communities in search of solutions.
RMIT first-year engineering students are meeting with community groups in Victoria and New South Wales to co-design and prototype innovative engineering solutions to solve community problems. A recent surge in support has seen the funding pool increase from $10,000 to $40,000, bringing the total to $210,000 until 2030.
The project sits within RMIT’s Humanitarian Engineering Lab, co-led by Dr Spyros Schismenos and Dr Nick Brown, and its recently established HERCULES – which stands for Humanitarian Engineering Research Consortium: Understanding and Leveraging Engineering with Society.
It is a collaboration between RMIT and SydWest Multicultural Services, Settlement Services International and PRONIA – all not-for-profits (NFPs) which work with culturally and linguistically diverse communities, including migrants, asylum seekers and refugees.