Wednesday July 30th, 7-10pm

We invite you to Bikes Not Bombs at 7pm on Wednesday July 30th to meet some of our international partners who will be giving presentations on their projects in Guatemala and Tanzania. Carlos Marroquin is the lead designer and engineer at the Maya Pedal organization in Guatemala, which uses donated bicycle materials from BNB to build pedal-powered machines for agricultural uses: corn shellers, grain grinders, peanut shellers, well water pumps, etc. Bernard Kiwia is an engineer in Tanzania, and works with the Vijana Vocational Training Center in Arusha, where BNB's donated bikes support a bike mechanics program. Their sales of these bikes are also the primary funding source to support the job training in other fields that the Vijana Center provides to people who have lost their families to the AIDS epidemic.

Both Carlos and Bernard are in Boston for the International Development Design Summit (IDDS) at MIT, which is bringing together 60 engineers from 20 developing countries around the world, to share techniques and take on design challenges to come up with new designs to address problems in each other's countries. These are "appropriate technology" designs, which need to be affordable, culturally appropriate, use locally available materials and be maintainable by the local population. For more information, see the IDDS website at http://www.iddsummit.org/ and read the IDDS blog at http://www.iddsummit.blogspot.com/. In early August MIT will host a display of the designs that result from the summit.

On Wednesday July 30th, 20 of these engineers will be visiting Bikes Not Bombs to meet and greet the BNB community. Come share some Middle Eastern food, talk to some engineers about their challenges and designs, and see the bigger presentations by Carlos of Guatemala and Bernard of Tanzania.

PLEASE RSVP! Email our intern Anubha at kingfisher@bikesnotbombs.org so we know how much food to plan. Happening at the BNB Hub at 284 Amory Street.