Sustaingineering’s Management team consisting of co-captains Jonah (middle) and Eli (middle right) as well as outgoing captain Abdul (far right), management advisor Sajan (middle left) and graduate advisor Jorge (far left)
Just a few months ago, at 10 pm, on the side of a highway in Denmark, Eli Carlin-Coleman learned that he would be one of the next Sustaingineering co-captains through a surprising phone call from the outgoing captain, Abdul Moiz.
Jonah was offered this same position by Sustaingineering’s outgoing captain, Sajan Rajdev. Although Sajan had wanted Jonah to take on a large management role earlier on the year, recognizing his passion from the very first team meeting, Jonah took on the role at the end of his first year on the team to understand better how the team worked first.
During a weekly technical team meeting, I interviewed Abdul, Jonah and Eli about their roles on the team, their life experiences and their passionate goals.
Abdul and Eli are fifth and fourth-year undergraduate electrical engineering students, respectively. Jonah is a second-year undergraduate integrated engineering student, who is combining mechanical and civil engineering degrees.
Abdul joined Sustaingineering as an electrical team member. He quickly took on a larger leadership role as he became the executive team manager where he looked over half of the team. Soon after, in May 2018, he became co-captain alongside Sajan Rajdev. Sajan stepped down from his role over the summer to become an advisor and Abdul is stepping down from his position this January to make way for Eli and Jonah.
One of his younger counterparts, Eli, joined the team in May 2018, also as an electrical team member, and became the electrical team lead within a few months before he left for exchange in Denmark. He quickly climbed the ranks and is now co-captain. Through his time on the electrical team, he worked with Arduino to read sensor systems.
Jonah joined the team in September 2018 and was part of the mechanical team before receiving his new position, although he is still an active member of his original team. On the mechanical team, he has worked on developing a solar powered water pump prototype as well as currently designing a cheap and efficient wind turbine to be implemented in rural areas of Nicaragua.
Jonah building the solar powered water pump prototype at the UBC Farm alongside other team members.
What do they do?
Current co-captain Eli Carlin-Coleman (left) and outgoing captain Abdul Moiz (right)
Abdul, Eli and Jonah are facilitators for the entire team. They ensure that everyone is being productive and that they’re being the best versions of themselves as members and teams as a whole.
“We provide structure by helping them achieve their goals without hindering their creative freedom.”
The three of them overlook nine sub-teams (marketing, finance, impact analysis, challenger, electrical, mechanical, software, education and management) at once. They have to understand and support each team’s progress and objectives. Most of all, they are managers and are constantly solving problems alongside the general team members and team leads. This could be as simple as ensuring each team has access to their meeting spaces or as complex as completing funding applications and employing the teams’ developed technologies.
““While the rest of the team are designing prototypes and solving the technical issues, we are making sure that the ship isn’t falling apart.””
Co-op Placements
Abdul at his most recent co-op placement, Smith and Anderson
Abdul spent his most recent co-op term working for Smith and Anderson, a consulting firm, where he designed electrical systems for office towers, malls, and food stores. He previously worked for 8 months at TELUS where he utilized big data techniques to track current 4G network performance and help them prepare for 5G.
Eli worked for Thales in Burnaby for eight months as an Information Security Analyst. On top of this local opportunity, he also worked at the Technical University of Denmark for four months following a four-month study exchange to the same institution. While he was in Denmark, he worked on their engineering rocket design team, DanSTAR. He explained that he pulled several ideas from his time with this team to apply to Sustaingineering, including weekly cross-team meetings with clear goal-setting as well as the use of Trello.
Eli presenting some of his work from his co-op term at Technical University of Denmark
The trio’s goals
The trio’s main long-term goal for the team is to make sure that their current momentum continues. Over the last few years, they have expanded the team. In fact, this fall, Sustaingineering received hundreds of applications. The captains were able to tap into the sustainability passions of UBC students, therefore marketing the team was very easy. Additionally, they want to ensure that impact analysis is prioritized. This is particularly important because they want to ensure that their projects are genuinely contributing to communities rather than blindly implementing technology.
Jonah, in particular, notes that he wants to secure a designated team space for Sustaingineering although this will definitely be a difficult task. He feels that whenever all the sub-teams are under the same roof, the team as a whole is more cohesive and productivity increases exponentially.
When it comes to what the three captains want to do in the future, they all want to make a positive difference.
Eli hopes to give back as an engineer to create positive change. He is currently still figuring out his career path as he has at least one and a half years of studying left until he graduates. However, he feels that being on this team has helped solidify that he wants to tie in sustainability into his career no matter how it happens.
Abdul wants to embody sustainability, no matter what industry he ends up in. During the time we spent talking, he explained how he only gained a greater awareness on sustainability through Sustaingineering. In particular, he quickly became more interested in sustainability as he met and interacted with passionate people who had a lot to share with him. Growing up in Pakistan, Abdul was able to experience first-hand the shortages of water that affect millions in rural communities. He ultimately hopes to give back to his home country and community, understanding and learning to become accountable for every action we take.
Jonah is still just beginning his engineering journey but he knows that he wants to end up in renewable energy and fill this very important void of engineers making sustainable energy resources practical. He is also interested in public policy, believing that there is a lack of engineering backgrounds in politics and that the acknowledgement of science in decision making would be very beneficial.
It is clear that all three of these captains are extremely passionate about sustainability and that they are bound to succeed in whatever they set their minds to. We are extremely lucky to have them leading us this year! Thank you, from all the team!
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