Revolutionizing Sanitation in Developing Nations: Yu-Ling Cheng at TEDxYouth@Toronto

Dr. Yu-Ling Cheng delivers a great overview of the current state of sanitatio and gives an over of her current efforts.  She speaks of how she came to understand  it to be essential to be part of the sanitation solution.   She is addressing a group of student  on the cusp of pick paths to travel starting colleges.  She delivers a message that will ring true many regardless of age and path now traveling.

Dr. Yu-Ling Cheng is the Director of the Centre for Global Engineering  (CGEN) and Professor of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University  Of  Toronto. CGEN was established in 2009 to be the focal point and major driver in preparing engineering graduates to meet challenges, responsibilities and opportunities in a globally sustainable future. Under her leadership, CGEN is developing new courses and academic programs in global engineering. She also leads new global engineering research initiatives, most notably a project under the “Re-invent the Toilet” challenge posed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Aside from her interests in global engineering, Professor Cheng’s research interests have centered around drug delivery, and the understanding of transport processes in polymeric and physiologic systems. She is a member the Teaching Academy, the highest honour for teaching at the University of Toronto. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Academics Without Borders, an NGO whose mission is to enhance higher education capacity in developing countries.

source for text is directly from : about Yu-Ling 

additional source about Yu-Ling

Related Links

• Professor Yu-Ling Cheng Discusses the Toilet Challenge (on Vimeo)
• A look at the prototype of the device Yu-Ling team is working on (youtube)
• University of Toronto awarded $2.2 million grant for toilet research
• TEDxAmsterdamWomen Anjali Sarker – Toilet+ overcoming my childhood fear TEDX event (washlink.wordpress.com)
• Canadian engineer helping reinvent the toilet (sunnewsnetwork.ca)

“Sewage Fed Biorefineries A Foundation for Urban Sustainability”

This a great TEDX by Kartik Chandran at TEDxColumbiaEngineering

Redefining the model for urban sewage treatment / sanitation  addressing

Waste recover-  Key Chemicals

Energy Recovery

Sustainability

From the Youtube Site

“Kartik Chandran is an Environmental Engineer. He is currently Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University, where he leads the Columbia University Biomolecular Environmental Science program and the Wastewater Treatment and Climate Change program. Under his stewardship, the research directions of biological wastewater treatment and biological nitrogen removal were established for the first time ever in the history of Columbia University. Chandran is keenly interested in developing novel models for sustainable sanitation and wastewater treatment, with a specific focus on managing the global nitrogen cycle (one of the grand challenges of the National Academy of Engineering) and linking it to the carbon cycle, the water cycle and the energy cycle. Chandran has received, among other awards, the NSF CAREER award and the Paul Busch Award. He was the recipient of a 2007 National Academies of Science Fellowship and a guest professorship at the Delft University of Technology. In 2011, Chandran began implementing a novel model for sanitation in Africa, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Water Environment Federation.”

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