This year, students from Northwestern’s chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World are aiming for accessibility in their annual summit.
ESW is a project-based group, which works on different design projects locally and internationally. They also focus on education and outreach; the Summit on Sustainability, or NU SOS falls under this pillar.
Starting last summer, the group began planning their first annual Summit on Sustainability. While they have held summits in the past, this year is going to have a different focus. NU SOS was created with the aim to have something for everyone, with the broad topic of environmental justice. Organizers of the event, McCormick seniors Sloane McNulty and Sasha Letuchy, hope this leads to a rotation of themes each year.
“Originally the conference has been more focused on technical things and the people who are interested in that are primarily engineers and scientists, but we wanted to expand it to have more people interested in it,” Letuchy said.
Engineers and scientists aren’t forgotten in this move, though.
“We’re hoping that with the theme, environmental justice, since it isn’t really as closely related to what engineers think about when they’re designing things,” Letuchy said, “we’re hoping that it opens people’s eyes to a new issue that they should be considering when they’re applying for jobs and when they’re thinking about how their technologies are going to be affecting low income communities.”
Majora Carter will give the keynote address on Friday from 7 to 8 p.m. Carter was awarded a MacArthur genius grant and gave a TEDtalk in 2006, which was one of the six presentations that was available for the launch of the TEDtalk website. She serves on the boards of many organizations such as The Wilderness Society and has a consulting company, which helps communities, governments and businesses with climate adaptation and urban micro-agribusiness.
The public and students alike are invited to this keynote and other formal speaker sessions as well as an informal discussion and an opportunity for sharing ideas. Saturday group sessions have a range in topics including:
• Policymaking for Environmental Justice
• Sustainable Urban Planning
• Food as a lens for Understanding Inequities
• Sustainable Equity for Human Landscapes
• Building a Movement: Stories of Local Transformation
• Not Business As Usual: Sustainability in Corporations
The summit starts this Friday, April 1 and lasts through Saturday, April 2. Those interested may register online.