CHANGE PICTURE

Dénombrement automatique de vélos apparaissant au sein d’une vidéo ou d’une image

Section : Génie Electrique et Electronique, Génie Mécanique, Informatique et Communications

Lieu : San Juan de Pasto, Colombie

Durée: 2-4 Mois

Disponible: dès maintenant

Structure d’accueil: En partenariat avec WeRobotics, l’association UrbaSEN et la Fédération Sénégalaise des Habitants membre de SDInet.org conduisent un projet de cartographie participative par drone (photogrammétrie) permettant d’établir des documents fonciers intermédiaires et des modèles numériques de terrain
modélisant le risque hydraulique.

Description du projet: ADD DESCRIPTION

• Evaluation de l’efficience technique et technologique de la consommation d’énergie dans les ménages
• Développer de manière prospective un plan nouveau plan de déploiement énergétique dans la ville de San Juan de Pasto

Compétences requises : Étudiant en génie électrique et électronique, génie mécanique, systèmes de communication ou informatique, souhaitant développer une expérience dans le cadre de la coopération internationale. L’étudiant devra démontrer des notions de base en traitement de signal et d’image, tout faisant preuve de capacités pédagogiques et relationnelles.

Contact : ADD CONTACT

Development of low-cost diagnostic tools assessing mercury contamination

Section: All

Location : Cali, rural Colombia

Duration : 2-6 months

Availability : Applications closed

Hosting structure: Universidad del Valle

Project overview

In Colombia, water availability per capita is relatively high (50,000 m³/inhabitant/year), but unequal distribution and contamination are major problems in rural settings (Rojas et al, 2013). One of the largest practices that threaten natural ecosystems in the Cauca river basin is the use of mercury for artisanal gold mining (WHO, 2016). Even though mercury usage for industrial purposes is now illegal in Colombia, the governmental institutions lack capacity to inforce regulations; particularly in the remote rural areas where most artisanal gold mines are located. To address this problem, we propose the development of community-based environmental protection programs. The primary outcome of the strategy is to change the corrective actions from focusing on regulation enforcement to a focus on education and communication strategies (Sánchez & Ortolano, 2005). The first milestone towards our goal is to implement a pilot program on participatory action research (PAR) for assisting vulnerable rural communities in the management and supply of water (Lammerink, 1998). PAR is a cost-efficient, sustainable platform that can be appropriated by local communities. The engagement of youth through PAR has proven successful in improving water quality and land management in the Colombian Andes (Roa & Brown 2009).

For implementing PAR in water safety monitoring, in-situ diagnostic tools are highly desirable. Unlike most laboratory standard techniques, these tools should be portable, disposable, user friendly, and low-cost. In this particular application, precision of the tool is not as important as its ability to provide a rough estimation on the levels of mercury in the sampled water.

Methodology : We have identified microwave-assisted synthesis of carbon quantum dots (CQDs) as a promising technique for local production of mercury sensors. The general detection mechanism is based on fluorescence quenching of the CQDs by mercury.

The intern would work on the synthesis and characterization of different types of CQD-based sensors for mercury detection. Based on our preliminary data of relevant mercury levels for different water sources in the Northern Cauca region, as well as in the particular field conditions in which mercury sensing will be conducted, the student will tune the manufacturing method in order to develop a rapid diagnostics device for water safety assessment by rural communities in the Cauca region.

Expected outcomes: The main outcome will be empowerment of rural communities through training and education on the implementation of locally-fabricated low-cost technologies for assessing environmental contamination. We will develop a participatory monitoring program that will (i) help the communities to understand environmental pollution in order to make informed decisions about the use of natural resources on the basis of analytical data; will (ii) contribute to enhance community capacity to demand environmental protection, mitigation and reparation from governmental institutions; and (iii) produce methods and technology available for all of the public in order to connect with different databases, enforcing environmental surveillance from the public sphere to drive policy.

Required skills: Laboratory skills ware preferred. Strong capacity of adaptation to new teams and conditions. Auntonomy and responsabiliy is expected. Programming and electronics skills are welcome.

Contact : Julien Wist <julien.wist@correounivalle.edu.co>

Mobile crowdsourcing platform for supporting Water Community Observatories

Section: IC

Location : Mexico

Duration : 3-6 months (to be defined)

Availability : now

Hosting structure: SieNi – You-i-Lab

The rapid advances in information technology are having a wide-ranging impact in the life of people around the world. Although these advances present significant challenges to society, these also offer unprecedented opportunities for people to connect, interact, innovate, and become active agents for positive social change within their communities. The You-i Lab aims to engage and empower youth through the use of ICTs and open innovation methodologies to develop projects for the public good in the Global South. The National Supercomputing Center (CNS) in San Luis Potosí hosts the You-i Lab, which is a state-of-the-art HPC research facility that focuses on the development of large-scale industrial projects. The CNS is managed by the Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (IPICYT), in México.

http://urbis.cns-ipicyt.mx/You-i.Lab

SieNi is a non-profit organization created in 2016 and based in Lausanne, Switzerland. We propose an innovative strategy at the crossroads of children’s rights and protection of the environment. Combining participatory science and community mobilization, we give Colombian children the necessary tools to become key actors of social change and better orient water governance in their territory.

www.sieni.co

Project description:

Water in Colombia is being contaminated at an alarming rate. In 2010, a report by the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) named Colombia among the top 9 countries that had 60% of the Earth’s freshwater reserves; five years later, in 2015, Colombia had fallen to 24th in the list. Despite high annual rainfall, the Colombian Ministry of the Environment estimates that 50 % of the country’s freshwater reserves have quality issues. The IDEAM (Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies of Colombia) has rang the alarm: If we don’t act now, by the year 2025, 69% of Colombians will be at high risk of no access to clean water during drought periods. Similar water problems are occurring in other Latin American countries like Mexico.

Organized in “water teams” led by their schoolteachers, the children diagnose water issues in their area, and then formulate and implement an action-research project. Teachers are trained on how to lead students throughout the process. Each water team has a mentor: a scientist specialized in water, based in Colombia or abroad, who interacts with his/her team in real time using digital media. The mentor ensures the scientific quality of the work of the water team. The results of the children’s research contribute to regional water observatories. An observatory is a physical space, a stage to raise, discuss and debate issues around water; and a virtual space, a database storing the water team’s findings that helps to identify and monitor the water situation in the region.

One of the challenges of our project is to develop the technology needed to host the database that will store the findings of the water teams. We have called this technology “Platform for Community Water Observatories” (PCWO). In 2017, the first version of the PCWO was developed thanks to a CODEV Seed Money grant to support community observatories in Colombia. A mobile crowdsourcing platform developed by the You-I Lab at IPICYT, was adapted to the needs of the project, tested on the field, and installed in December 2017 in the server of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, SieNi’s partner in Bogotá in charge of hosting the observatories.

As the PCWO was being developed, SieNi’s pilot project, which will end in May 2017, was in course with 30 water teams. The pilot project allowed partners to identify the type of data that can realistically be collected by the children in the water teams with the means they dispose of on the field. Children will recover data on the following aspects:

• physical geography of their water basin;
• flora and the fauna present in their water basin;
• social uses of water in their water basin;
• state of water in their water basin.

In its present form, the PCWO allows children to delimit their water basin on an interactive platform, and to upload geo-localized images, texts and numerical data using their mobile phones. Data can also be uploaded from a desktop computer.

Is the first version of the PCWO adapted to the real needs of the water teams? Can all the data which will be collected by the water teams be satisfactorily registered in the PCWO in its present version, and then be used in a profitable manner for scientific research and decision-making, or do some changes have to be made and/or some new modules developed? Can the PCWO be seamlessly used in other Latina American countries like México?

Required skills: 

Solving this challenge requires a multi-disciplinary working group of students, including at least two computer engineers:

• Web applications developer with experience programming in Java, Java Script, PHP, MongoDB.
• Mobile apps developer with experience developing Android applications.

Contact :

You-I Lab

Salvador Ruiz Correa

Salvador.ruiz@ipicyt.edu.mx

SieNi

Susana Borda Carulla

SieNi General Secretary

susana.borda@sieni.co

Implementation of a water safety strategy

Section: SIE

Location : Dübendorf, Switzerland and Birendranagar, Nepal. 

Duration : 4 months 

Availability : not recruiting 

Hosting structure: Sandec, the Department of Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development of Eawag which is the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, an internationally networked aquatic research institute within the ETH Domain (Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology). Eawag conducts research, education and expert consulting to achieve the dual goals of meeting direct human needs for water and maintaining the function and integrity of aquatic ecosystems.

Project description: Internship to support research activities on the implementation of a water safety strategy in rural Nepal (REACH-Nepal). Eawag’s past research in rural areas in Mid-Western Nepal revealed inconsistent water quality across the piped schemes, high rates of recontamination of stored drinking water, and low perceived risk perception among water users. Spatial and temporal dynamics of water quality also revealed inadequate protection of spring sources supplying the system. REACH-Nepal is the current collaborative project with HELVETAS and focuses on installing solar-powered field laboratories across the HELVETAS’ Water Resource Management Program (WARM-P) service region and training local technicians to monitor and mitigate drinking water supplies.

REACH-Nepal was launched in January 2017 and the pilot phase ran from June to December 2017 in the district of Dailekh. The second phase of the project started in January 2018, expanding the study scope in new districts. To assess the impact of the REACH project, data is collected at different time points. The responsibility of the intern is to conduct baseline data collection in the field using mobile data collection tools, including the training of local enumerators. The intern will also be responsible for conducting water sampling to assess the microbial water quality using the membrane filtration method, and a solar-powered laboratory setup in the field. The amount spent in the field in Nepal will be of about 3 months.

Required skills: 

• Student of a postgraduate degree in environmental engineering, or related field (individuals which are not enrolled at a University cannot be employed as interns)
• Fundamental knowledge on drinking water quality
• Fluency in English (spoken and written)
• Passionate about field-based research
• Capability to collaborate with research partners and stakeholders
• Experience with laboratory analysis and excel database management

Contact : Ariane Schertenleib, ariane.schertenleib@eawag.ch

Note: Intern salary and travel expenses covered by the hosting structure but no Ingénieurs du Monde travel grant