One Village Philippines is a multidisciplinary team of fifteen engineering students within the UC San Diego Global TIES program. I am a principal member of the Global TIES program. Our team is working together with the non-profit organization Gawad Kalinga to support its mission of alleviating poverty for communities across the Philippines by providing humanitarian solutions via engineering services. Due to limited lighting, nighttime travel is especially difficult for residents and they often feel unsafe.

 

Through the development of a sustainable lighting solution, our team addresses the need for sufficient lighting throughout the village at night and catalyzes social entrepreneurship within the Filipino community by empowering villagers to produce and sell the solar light locally.

 

What I do:

I rapidly prototype and iterate through several designs to create a solar-powered light that meets the needs of the Filipino community.  I also participate in pitch competitions to garner more funding for the project. I lead the development and creation of the construction manual for the lights. Our team has deployed several hundreds of these devices into the Enchanted Farms community, and continue to support the community in its efforts to create their own lights - thus inspiring 3rd order change.

I believe in the mission of this project, and it follows the old proverb: 

 

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."

Similarly - Give the villagers our devices and they will temporarily lift the darkness. Teach them how to create the device, and illuminate the darkness for a lifetime.

 

 

Awards Won

(2018 - 2019)

    - Berkeley's BIG Idea $ 9,000

    - Participant of the 11th annual Clinton Global Initiative Meeting in Chicago 
 

(2017 - 2018)

    - Ignite @UC San Diego Elevator Pitch $1,750

    - UC San Diego Triton Innovation Challenge $2,500