Page 27 - Inventing Tomorrow

“When you’re trying to solve
real world problems, it’s more
important to have the people skills to ask the right questions to get the right information rather than just being a number
-crunching guru.”
“Usually you would have to ask the same question two or three times to get a general idea of what the real issue was,” Gelhaus said. The team spent a lot of time consulting the fundi bomba, a man named Habakkuk, who spoke broken English. “Our team of four became very close with Habakkuk,” he said.
Within days, they devised their solution, which was to re-plumb the hospital in stages with non-scaling plastic pipe. The work would be backbreaking but not high tech. “It’s getting the pipes, the resources to the village, and then digging to make sure the pipes can be buried underground,” Gelhaus said.
Gelhaus won’t see the results of his work. Student groups who traveled to Tanzania in January 2016 and the fol- lowing year will complete the project; other groups will plan and design new projects.
Three weeks in Tanzania taught Gelhaus that communication skills can trump engineering knowledge.
“When you’re trying to solve real- world problems, it’s more important
to have the people skills to ask the right questions to get the right infor- mation rather than just being a num- ber-crunching guru. Understanding your problem before you try to solve it is key,” he said.
— BEN GELHAUS
WINTER 2016 27