CEDC Origami Project: Shelter – Anywhere, In a Hurry
CEDC Origami Project: Shelter – Anywhere, In a Hurry By Isabella Short On Monday February 6th, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria. So far, this natural disaster has killed more than 34,000 people between the two countries. With nearly 70,000 people reported injured, the impact of this disaster is catastrophic. Almost 3,000 buildings have collapsed across Turkey, more reported in Syria. People will be displaced from their homes for the foreseeable future. When people are displaced by natural disasters, such as the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, there is an urgent need for emergency shelter. Students at Clemson University are dedicating themselves to provide a solution to housing emergencies like this earthquake. [...]
Contaminated Water Kills
Contaminated Water Kills: Clemson CEDC Students Designing “DIY” Water Filter for Affected Communities By Isabella Short Malawi, a country in southeastern Africa, is currently experiencing its deadliest cholera outbreak with more than 1,000 deaths so far. This exceeds the outbreak of 2001, when the death toll was 968. Cholera rarely crosses minds in industrialized countries as they have infrastructure which helps prevent the spread of the disease. However, according to the World Health Organization, in 2022 over 29 countries reported cholera cases or outbreaks. Many of these outbreaks occur in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Haiti. Bacterial disease, such as cholera, spreads easily through contaminated water but is well controlled through water treatment and proper [...]
CEDC Institutional Amnesia
CEDC Institutional Amnesia By Isabella Short and Vikramjit Singh Imagine spending hundreds of hours working on a project, then having the students who come after you be unable to recall the work you did. This is a phenomenon known as institutional amnesia and is a challenge Clemson Engineers for Developing Communities (CEDC) is confronting today. CEDC is a student-led College of Engineering, Computing, & Applied Sciences (CECAS) Signature Program at Clemson University. Being student-led is one of the program’s most unique elements but is a double-edged sword. Students do incredible work, but when they graduate, the knowledge created may easily become lost and not be passed on to the next group of students. [...]
Broadband Access and the Advent of COVID-19
Broadband Access and the Advent of COVID-19 By Pamela Bretscher Clemson University has been studying the extent and impacts of poor broadband access in South Carolina since 2019. According to BroadbandNow, South Carolina ranks 31st in the United States in broadband coverage, with 344,000 residents lacking the minimum accepted broadband speed of 25 Mbps. Additionally, 23% of schools and 34% of hospitals in rural South Carolina do not meet minimum broadband requirements. This “digital divide” and its repercussions have been magnified by the advent of COVID-19 and the switch to primarily digital methods of schooling and healthcare. This unprecedented reliance on telecommunications has highlighted the urgency of narrowing the digital divide. Our research focused on uncovering the [...]