copyright NCIIA 2009 www.nciia.org/conf09 Innovations Unlimited: Advancing Education, Investing in Change The NCIIA 13th Annual Meeting March 19-21, 2009 • Washington, DC Sustainable Vision and the Affordable Ecological Home for the Andes in Peru Lupita D. Montoya, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Ursula Harman, Pontifcia Universidad Católica del Perú Abstract Te goal of this work was to train students to design under multiple constraints (e.g., limited resources, cul- tural and socioeconomic challenges, and language bar- riers). Tis paper describes two projects conducted by a team formed by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Grupo de Apoyo al Sector Rural of the Pontifcia Universidad Católica del Perú (Grupo-PUCP). Te frst project involves the design and construction of an eco- logical home for the Andes; the second involves the de- velopment of appropriate technologies for sustainable development of the rural community of Langui, Peru. Te paper describes how the implementation of these projects in the context of an ecological home has afect- ed, in positive and negative ways, the students from the US and Peru and the community members of Langui. Te project also showed that when respect and coop- eration among people from diferent cultures overcome these challenges, anything is possible. Introduction This paper describes two individual projects the RPI-PUCP team has worked on: the Ecological Home for the Andes and a Sustainable Vision grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). The decision to combine projects was necessary in order to leverage the limited resources from each project. In addition, as the team learned more about the communities served by these projects, adjustments were made to formulate a larger strategy that enabled the success of these enterprises and launched future collaborations. It is also important to explain how the interaction between students from diferent cultures, in a rural and disadvantaged context, has changed their professional perspective and how all these new innovative technologies have impacted rural families’