Professor Ashok Gadgil co-edited an Open Access graduate-level textbook, "An Introduction to Development Engineering," introducing the emerging field of Development Engineering and relevant applications through contributions from more than 40 practicing experts as co-authors. Springer published the book, which is available as a free PDF download on their website. Please visit Gadgil's lab website to learn more about his research.
This open-access textbook serves as a teaching text for students and a resource for researchers and practitioners engaged in designing and scaling technologies for low-resource communities. The book establishes a solid conceptual framework that addresses the challenges of poverty and global climate change through the design of better technologies. The framework's scope is broad, including developing mobile applications for low-literacy users to hardware and software solutions that provide electricity and water in remote settings.
The textbook is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on methods and theories from the social sciences, engineering, and natural sciences. It offers the rigorous discipline needed to channel the energy of a new generation of scientists and engineers toward advancing social justice and improving living conditions in low-resource communities worldwide.