CGI U In The News

How Many Students Does It Take To Save the World: Ask 2011

May 11, 2011

Fast Company
by Alice Korngold

Waste-picking is a way of life for millions of children who live in extreme poverty. Living in landfill communities, they and their families spend their days scavenging dump sites for recyclable materials in order to earn $2/day. Determined to understand their needs and interests, and explore solutions and nonprofit partnerships, Ryan Integlia and his friends visited landfill communities in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Next, Integlia, a graduate student in electrical engineering at Rutgers University, along with Tiffany Tong of Princeton, established a student-run global organization called em[POWER]. The nonprofit helps waste-picking communities to gain access to education and health care and improve their quality of life through the use of renewable resources.