**Abstract**

Information, communication, and energy technologies have the potential to improve engineering education worldwide. With the availability of low cost, opensource microcontrollers/microcomputers, such as the Arduino and Raspberry Pi platforms, and a wide variety of sensors and communication tools, a range of engineering applications and innovations may be developed at a low price. Furthermore, the cost of solar panels and LED lamps have also dropped dramatically in recent years and these also allow for improved energy support in regions that lack energy access or require autonomous monitoring/processing. Also, low-cost 3D printers are now widely available for making simple prototypes of hardware. Finally, low-cost educational software tools have also become available. Combining these technologies enables engineering education to be brought into traditionally inaccessible communities in the world. In this book chapter, examples of how ICT and energy technologies are being used to teach students engineering technologies in underserved communities will be described. Application areas to be described will include environmental monitoring, clean water systems, and remote learning.

**Keywords:** ICT4D, open-source hardware, solar electric systems, 3D printers, Information and Communication technologies, sustainable development goals, global engagement

### **1. Introduction**

Since the development of the first integrated circuit by J. Kilby in 1958 [1], microchips have advanced enormously growing to include billions of transistors on a single chip. These advances have fueled the growth of the information technology industry with high performance computers and high-speed communications. Data can be communicated at lightning speeds over fiber optic networks and stored in large data centers or in the cloud.

Yet, while these tremendous advancements are available to students attending universities in well-resourced settings, universities in low resource settings often lack even basic information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure including computers, software, and Internet access. This lack of ICT resources greatly limits the quality of engineering education that can be delivered to students in these low resource settings. Many of the universities with low levels of ICT resources are in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the

Caribbean, and in parts of Asia. This further exacerbates the digital divide between communities in low resource settings compared to those in higher resource settings. This results in limited innovation and modern economic development opportunities for students in low resource communities. Additionally, the lack of reliable electricity in low resource settings is another barrier to delivering quality education in these environments. Furthermore, the cost and energy requirements for conventional prototyping equipment, e.g. lathes, bandsaws, drill presses, etc. prevents them from being integrated into engineering curricula in low resource settings. Finally, the professors in these low resource settings do not have the training and education in the use of modern technologies. This results in much of the pedagogical approach to teaching engineering in low resource settings to be mostly theoretical and out of date. There has been very little opportunity for students to get hands-on prototyping experience that they can use to innovate engineering solutions to local societal problems.

Recent technology advances in the area of low-cost, open-source hardware and software are opening up new possibilities for professors at universities in lowand middle-income countries (LMICs) to provide their students with hands-on, experiential learning opportunities in developing engineering solutions to realworld problems. Microcontroller and microcomputer hardware platforms, such as the Arduino and Raspberry Pi platforms provide several input/output interfaces for sensors, displays, and transducers, significant memory storage, and quite powerful processing capability. When combined with an array of open-source software tools, such as the Linux and Android (a derivative of Linux) operating systems, Mozilla Firefox, Libre Office, Wikipedia, Khan Academy, Python programming language, etc. a powerful array of capabilities become available to developers at low cost. Furthermore, the cost of solar panels and solar electric systems have also come down dramatically over the last decade to the point where they are competitive with grid-generated electricity in many locations. This allows for reliable power to be provided in areas that have previously lacked access to energy. A fourth technology that has emerged over the last decade is the advent of low cost 3-D printers. This development has also added to the suite of low-cost technologies that are now available for low-cost prototyping of engineered products. Finally, affordable mobile phones are available everywhere. At a minimum, almost everyone in the world has access to feature phones and smart phones are owned by almost 50% of the world's population [2]. This ubiquitous availability of mobile phones throughout the world has provided relatively low-cost connectivity everywhere.

These five technological advances have opened many new opportunities for ubiquitous, project-based, learning of engineering, even in low resource settings. To fully take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the vision of Industry 5.0, a broader, more diverse array of engineers need to be educated to enhance the creativity needed to address broader challenges as described by the UN Sustainable Development Goals [3] or National Academy of Engineers Grand Challenges [4].

The focus of this chapter is to show how the combination of low-cost energy and information and communication technology (ICT) platforms along with 3D printers offer the opportunity to educate students in engineering in global, low resource settings to create a more inclusive and diverse workforce to support the Industry 5.0 initiative. Examples of hands-on initiatives in various LMICs including Nicaragua, Ecuador, Guatemala, Malawi, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania will be presented.

### **2. ICT, energy and 3-D printing technologies**

Low-cost open-source hardware was first introduced by Arduino in 2005 [5]. The philosophy behind the development of the Arduino microcontroller was to

*Using ICT and Energy Technologies for Improving Global Engineering Education DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100097*

make an easy-to-use platform for non-engineers to prototype electronic circuits. The basic Arduino Uno single board microcontroller (see **Figure 1**) plugs into the USB port of a computer and has its own integrated development environment (IDE) that is relatively easy to program (and can even be programmed with a basic, block-based programming tool). The features of the Arduino microcontroller are provided in **Table 1**. In addition to the basic device, there are shields that may be added to extend the capabilities of the Arduino microcontroller, such as a Wifi shield that allows for connectivity to a wireless communication network. There are also more powerful versions of the microcontroller, such as the Arduino Mega as well as devices of different form factor, e.g. circular devices that can be housed in circular housings.

A second open-source hardware device that has become very popular is the Raspberry Pi microcomputer. This low-cost device is a fully integrated computer. The features of the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B are illustrated in **Figure 2** and provided in **Table 2**. The Raspberry Pi has a built-in Google Chrome browser and supports programming in Python. There are also many application software packages that come with the basic device including Wolfram's Mathematica, MIT's Scratch, and Wikipedia. Many other software packages may be downloaded onto this microcomputer platform.

#### **Figure 1.**

*Photograph of an Arduino Uno microcontroller [6].*


#### **Table 1.**

*Features of Arduino Uno microcontroller.*

#### *Insights Into Global Engineering Education After the Birth of Industry 5.0*

**Figure 2.** *Features of the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B microcomputer [7].*


#### **Table 2.**

*Features of the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B microcomputer.*

A third set of open-source hardware technologies that has emerged in the last decade is 3D printers. While 3D printers were available in university research labs in the 1990's, they were very expensive and so were economically out of reach of members living in low resource communities. The RepRap project was started in 2005 by Dr. Adrian Bowyer with the goal of developing low-cost 3D printers that could be replicated around the world [8]. This has led to the development of low-cost 3D printers that can now be purchased for under \$200 in the US. Furthermore, opensource designs are available so that people can make their own units. **Figure 3** shows an example of a low-cost 3D printer available on the market today [9]. In addition to the 3D printer hardware, there are many open-source software tools, including 3D builder [10] that are easy to use by beginners. Also, free designs may be downloaded from various websites in standard file formats, such as.stl files. A comprehensive list of resources for 3D printing, including software tools, 3D printer models, example designs, etc. are available from github.com [11].

Many so-called "Fab-Labs" have now opened in many countries to take advantage of these industry trends to support open-source, low-cost design of engineered parts. In addition to 3D printers, these Fab-Labs include other prototyping tools in a workshop setting. A global mapping of Fab-Labs is available at the website: https:// www.fablabs.io/labs/map [12].

Finally, the cost of solar panels has dropped dramatically in the past decade as shown in **Figure 4** [13]. This allows relatively low-cost solar electric systems (<\$2 per Watt) to be installed in remote schools to provide consistent and reliable power even

*Using ICT and Energy Technologies for Improving Global Engineering Education DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100097*

**Figure 3.** *Lulz Bot Taz 6 low-cost 3D printer [9].*

**Figure 4.** *Price of solar panels per watt from 1990 to 2015 [13].*

**Figure 5.** *The "Digital Drum" solar-power computer kiosk in Uganda [14].*

in areas that lack access to grid electricity. An example of a creative approach to setting up a solar computer kiosk is the "Digital Drum" that was developed by UNICEF. The design of the solar-powered computer kiosk employs modified oil drums to create the kiosk. A picture of this implementation at a school in Uganda is shown in **Figure 5** [14].

Bringing all these technological advances together offers the opportunity to educate students in low-resource settings in basic engineering skills. These students offer unique creativity and enthusiasm, resulting in a potentially more diverse array of products to emerge from these designers. There is a further trend in global

engineering education where students from more privileged communities are interested in doing community service in low resource communities [15]. Students work with rural communities to identify needs and then co-develop engineering solutions for these communities [16]. These needs can span improving basic digital literacy in remote communities to developing applications to detect contaminants in drinking water. The next section describes more detailed case studies of improving engineering education in various universities in low resource settings.
