Innovation Showcases
Societal Impact and Assessment: How to Gauge Impact and Success View Digital Media
Innovation Showcase Kenton Seaver
The emphasis of societal impact has affected colleges like never before. This change has led the University of Texas at Dallas’ Jindal School of Management (JSOM) to create an assessment template to capture and measure what is being done at the program level to better the society it affects. Like any program that focuses on the assessment of a program and its students, the overarching goal of this proposal is to provide information to an audience that not only has benefited the school, but also the student. In addition, with the model used in our School of Management, we also impact society: those we reach, and those who reach out to us. In addition, creating a sense of belonging for our students is at the forefront of what we do, and that is assisted by providing projects as well as academics that measure what a person contributes to the finished product. We are an academic program that transcends the walls of the school and reaches society as a whole.
Featured Is It Worth Worrying about My Home's Environmental Sustainability?: SHINE Research Project - Sustainable Homes Integrating Non-Intrusive Environmental Sensors
Innovation Showcase Tracy Mae Ildefonso
Recent incidents in social housing have highlighted the poor living conditions faced by tenants, resulting in fatalities in the UK and increased respiratory illnesses in Ireland. Irish social housing landlords initially responded to complaints regarding issues like mould, dampness, condensation, and cold homes by advising tenants to self-clean with anti-mould paint and suggesting behavioural changes. Despite promises of regenerating some social housing properties, these commitments remain unfulfilled. The government has initiated efforts to upgrade social homes through grants for deep energy retrofit and Net Zero standards for newly built homes. However, the social housing sector faces the challenge of engaging tenants in maintaining a healthy and sustainable home. To address this issue, our research aims to provide a tool in the form of a low-cost, non-intrusive, environmental sensor to monitor indoor air quality and offer customised recommendations to tenants. This sensor is designed to ensure tenant control over their data and easy comprehensibility of the technology. Our project has gathered findings from 28 stakeholders through one-on-one interviews and developed a prototype. The study delves into these current findings and the prototype overview. We hope that this initiative will foster a deeper understanding of home sustainability and air quality among social housing tenants, leading to lower repair costs for the social housing sector and contributing to a more sustainable Ireland in the future.
From Compassion to Conservation: The Role of Empathy in Sustainable Living
Innovation Showcase Mohammad Alsager Alzayed
Empathy plays a critical role in advancing sustainability by fostering a deeper connection between individuals, communities, and the environment. As a gateway to sustainable practices, empathy enables people to understand the impact of their actions on both the planet and future generations. In my research, I present the intersection of empathy and sustainability by exploring how human connection can drive sustainable behaviors and decisions, in engineering education contexts. This research aims to bridge empathy and sustainability, showing that emotional connection is a powerful tool for promoting a healthier, more sustainable future.
