KU Student Works to Solve Challenges at International Engineering Competition

by Joel Mathis

After attending the Global Grand together more than 900 of the Challenges Summit in London world’s top engineers to brainstorm in fall 2019 during his senior and present ideas to help solve the year, KU Engineering student Gyasi “Grand Challenges for Engineering

Talib knows one thing: He can go toein the 21st century,” a list of 14 goals to-toe with some of the top students in created in 2008 to improve life on the the world and hold his own. planet. Among those goals: create

“There were Ivy League schools better medicines, improve urban there, students from top schools in infrastructure, prevent nuclear terror

London and China, and I was able to and create methods to capture and compete,” said Talib, a recent graduate store excess carbon dioxide to stem and in architectural engineering, after reverse climate change. returning from the gathering. A “Student Co-Lab” was held in

“He kind of put KU on the map,” the days leading up to the summit, added Andrew Williams, KU’s in which multinational teams of associate dean for diversity, equity engineering students were given and inclusion and the Charles E. and less than two days to come up with

Mary Jane Spahr Professor in Electrical a product and a business plan to

Engineering and Computer Science, address one of those 14 challenges. who also attended the summit in Presentations were limited to four

September 2019. minutes, followed by a three-minute

The Global Grand Challenges Q&A with judges.

Summit was jointly hosted by the Talib was on a team that placed in

U.S., U.K. and Chinese academies the top four out of 50 participating of engineering. The event brings in the competition—300 students Photo submitted by Andrew Williams in all—resulting in a chance to present their ideas to engineers at the main summit. “It was pretty intense,” said Williams, who mentored a separate team. “They didn’t have much time to do it. They did it within 36 hours. So I basically coached a team of students to come up with an idea,

Gyasi Talib, right, 2020 architectural engineering graduate, a prototype, a solution and Andrew Williams, associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, traveled to London in fall 2019 to participate in the and business plan.”

Global Grand Challenges Summit. Talib was on a team that placed in the top four at the competition.

“Our product was an app. It is a competitive tool that gives incentives for people to recycle,” said Talib. The app’s ability to track recycling would make it easier for big companies—particularly coffee companies like Starbucks—to connect their supply lines to sustainable sources, he said, and would also reward individuals who do the recycling.

The judges were impressed with the product, Talib said, but also his team’s plan to market it to the public. “I think, after speaking with everybody there, going into an entrepreneurial trade is something I’m suited for,” Talib said. “That’s something I didn’t realize until this event.”

Williams said Talib has been an active participant in programs offered by iHAWKE, the School of Engineering’s diversity program, that give students a chance to compete and create ideas to help communities that need assistance. Those offerings helped prepare Talib for the international competition.

“The IHAWKe-a-thons gave me experience in leadership and public speaking, which helped in London,” Talib said.

“Not only did he understand the process, but he had really good people interaction and leadership characteristics,” Williams said. “He definitely contributed to the winning presentation. It shows we have very talented, very diverse students from the University of Kansas School of Engineering.”