{"49856":{"#nid":"49856","#data":{"type":"news","title":"ISyE Students Finding Ways to Fight World Hunger","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESix Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) students recently completed a senior design project that may help fight hunger in the world. For these six students having the World Food Programme as the focus of their project meant saving dollars in order to put precious resources where they matter.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAdvised by Professor Ozlem Ergun, these Georgia Tech engineering students * Elhadj Bah from Guinea; Alvaro Morales from Guatemala; Manuel Jimenez from Costa Rica; Santiago Aviles from Ecuador; James Wade and Lawrence Li from the United States, not only put their own international spin on their group but came together to try to make a significant impact on a humanitarian organization.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAt the beginning of the senior design project, these ISyE students decided that they wanted to focus on humanitarian logistics.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We really felt that we could make a difference with our education so we started contacting organizations,* said Alvaro Morales.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOne of the first organizations to respond to the students was the World Food Programme, the arm of the United Nations responsible for food aid. In choosing this organization to work with, the students began looking at how they could assist the organization in their supply chain and inventory management systems.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Our goal was to redesign their supply chain with the goal to maximize the number of people they can feed given their financial resources,\u0022 said James Wade.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWith nearly 3 billion dollars of direct expenditures, the World Food Programme reached almost 100 million people in 2008.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe ISyE students contacted the World Food Programme in the summer of 2008. Each member of the student design project team traveled to Rome, Italy during the fall semester to meet with representatives of the World Food Programme. \u0022We had the complete cooperation of the World Food Programme and their representatives,* said Santiago Aviles. \u0022From the highest level, they provided input and information so that we could work on this project.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe ISyE students built an operational tool for inventory management and a mathematical supply chain model to analyze the impact of their proposed strategic changes. \u0022For us it meant not just saving dollars, but saving lives,* said Manuel Jimenez. \u0022The World Food Programme is the frontline agency in the fight against hunger. Our project helped make changes that will lower costs while improving their ability to warehouse and transport food.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe students recently presented a poster at the 2009 Humanitarian Logistics Conference at Georgia Tech. These ISyE students wanted to make a difference and, as they stated, \u0022Our metrics were not dollars; they were human lives. Money saved for the World Food Programme means more food for more people,\u0022 said Elhadj Bah.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThis unique group of students all decided to come to Tech based on the strength of the ISyE program at Tech. \u0022We all knew that Georgia Tech had the number one ISyE program in the country,\u0022 said Wade. This national ranking is also well known in Central and South America. \u0022A degree in Industrial Engineering is extremely valuable in the countries where several of us are from,\u0022 said Aviles, who ran a watermelon plantation in Ecuador before coming to Tech. \u0022We wanted not only the best education we could get but the opportunities that coming to Tech provided.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThis article first appeared on the College of Engineering web site:  \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.coe.gatech.edu\/feature\/13_ISyE-WFP.php\u0022\u003Ehttp:\/\/www.coe.gatech.edu\/feature\/13_ISyE-WFP.php\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESix Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) students recently completed a senior design project that may help fight hunger in the world. For these six students having the World Food Programme as the focus of their project meant saving dollars in order to put precious resources where they matter.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"ISyE Students Finding Ways to Fight World Hunger"}],"uid":"27279","created_gmt":"2009-03-09 00:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:03:59","author":"Barbara Christopher","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2009-03-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2009-03-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"49857":{"id":"49857","type":"image","title":"World Food Programme Senior Design team","body":null,"created":"1449175366","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:42:46","changed":"1475894451","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:40:51","alt":"World Food Programme Senior Design team","file":{"fid":"126997","name":"tdj11303.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tdj11303_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tdj11303_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":31560,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tdj11303_0.jpg?itok=gBGypbmd"}}},"media_ids":["49857"],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"}],"keywords":[{"id":"1192","name":"fighting world hunger"},{"id":"1191","name":"industrial engineering"},{"id":"426","name":"isye"},{"id":"1193","name":"World Food Programme"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBarbara Christopher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIndustrial and Systems Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=bt3\u0022\u003EContact Barbara Christopher\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404.385.3102\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["bchristopher@isye.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}