HUMANITARIAN ENGINEER
Andrew Lamb
Hello, I'm Andrew, I'm 27 and the Chief Executive of a charity called Engineers Without Borders UK. I was inspired to go into Engineering at a young age by playing with Lego and then later by looking at aeroplanes and wondering how such a lot of metal could stay up in the air. I took Maths and Science A-levels, which led on to an Engineering degree at Cambridge. My final year project was a self-balancing, remote controlled robotic unicycle!
My company places Engineering students in developing countries to help their communities thrive. I am responsible for funding, choosing where to give sponsorship, hiring and training new people and selecting our overseas placements. I love that my background in Science and Maths has led to such an emotionally rewarding career.
Follow Andrew's job on Twitter or learn other ways to help the world, using science .
Did you know?- You can earn from £15,000 to £60,000 as an Engineer.
- Senior Engineers can travel all over the world for their business.
- As an Engineer, you could have your dream job and help others by working for a charitable organisation like Engineers Without Borders UK.
- There are hundreds of different types of jobs in the sector, from Biomedical Engineering to Drilling Engineering.
- Many jobs offer on-the-job training, perfect if you'd like to go into Engineering but aren't sure where to specialise.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:Hi, my name's Andrew Lamb. Welcome to Engineers Without Borders UK. This is our office, I would show you around but this is it. The fun stuff happens over here.
My job is to send people overseas to work with people who don't have access to water, housing, electricity, to find projects that young people can work on to help people around the world.
In Ecuador we're doing a water supply system. In Nepal we were doing solar power. In Nigeria we were building roads. We did some earthquake-safe housing in El Salvador. We're working with some schools in South Africa. And in Sierra Leone we're doing a water-pump project like this.
The world is full of problems and, as an engineer, on a daily basis I'm using Maths, I'm using Science to solve problems.
This is an open washer pump, it's great fun. We've just finished building some of these in Sierra Leone. It's very simple - drinks bottles tops go up the pipe, lift the water up and all you've got to do is pull it over the bicycle wheel.
This is what I love about engineering, even simple technology can save lives.
Maths is actually really important in the field because when you're out there providing water to people, if you get your Maths wrong and you don't provide enough water you can create conflict, and it's not because the water isn't there.
If you wanted to get into this work the kind of subjects you'd need to choose would be Maths and Physics but, also, you'd need to learn about the world around you and learn about what life is like for most of the world's population.
This whole campaign is called Science And Maths - See Where They Can Take You. And for me, for me personally, it's taken me around the world.
Interested in becoming an Humanitarian Engineer? Find out more about it here, check out our Useful Links section or talk to a careers advisor at school.