Innovation: The Graduation Password at Heliopolis University

Five years after its inauguration, Heliopolis University for Sustainable Development has recently celebrated the graduation of its first students from its faculties of Engineering and Pharmacy. The students’ innovative projects starred the event of their graduation, by which they put forward sustainable solutions for some community challenges.

“Serving the needs of the community in accordance with ecological ethics has been always the core message at the university,” said Yassine Al-Sherif, the graduated student from the Energy Department of Heliopolis University. Yassine presented a Thermo-Electric Solar Water Cooler together with his colleagues, as an alternative to the traditional water dispenser. “The sustainable cooler provides cold drinking water, cooled using electricity gained through a photo-voltaic panel,” he explained.

Yassine presented a Thermo-Electric Solar Water Cooler together with his colleagues, as an alternative to the traditional water dispenser.

Three other teams of the Heliopolis University students addressed the water scarcity issue by presenting different water treatment processes for agricultural use. “We manufactured a Forward Osmosis Kit (FO), by which we could obtain desalinated water. Driven by the natural osmotic pressure difference, the dissolved solutes are separated from salt water across a semipermeable membrane”, said Salah Mounir from the Water department. Recently, Heliopolis University imported equipment, which works with the same FO technique with a value of EGP 40,000. “We manufactured our model, which is almost as efficient as the imported one with costs  around EGP 1,800 only; all the materials of our model are locally sourced and manufactured,” Salah asserted.

Furthermore, a 3D printer and a Quad-Copter were manufactured and presented by other students of Heliopolis University, which created a unique, competitive spirit between them. The students’ graduation projects demonstrated the holistic approach, which SEKEM and Heliopolis University have been always promoting – the approach of enabling new generations to be innovative and creative, capable of giving back to the community by facing its challenges and striving to solve them.

Noha Hussein

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