October 28, 2014

Building bridges

CU-Boulder alumna Avery Bang
Engineering alumna changes lives across the globe

Avery Bang (MS CivEngr’09) believes that every person has a right to safely access essential services such as health care, schools and markets.

As CEO of Bridges to Prosperity (B2P), a nonprofit that builds pedestrian bridges in rural poor communities to provide access, Bang is literally building upon that belief, one bridge at a time.  

Under her leadership, B2P has worked with numerous engineers and contractors to build nearly 170 in 18 countries and counting. She also founded the Bridges to Prosperity University Program, which supports student chapter groups around the world including one at CU-Boulder. 

As a CU-Boulder alumna, Bang has remained involved both as a teacher and a learner in the Mortenson Center for Engineering for Developing Communities and is a member of the College of Engineering and Applied Science’s GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) Board. She is a prolific public speaker and recipient of many honors and accolades, including both the 2014 Recent Alumni Award by the engineering college and the 2014 Kalpana Chawla Outstanding Recent Graduate Award by the CU-Boulder Alumni Association.

Bang is this year’s featured speaker at the Back to Boulder Homecoming Luncheon on Friday, Oct. 24, at the CU Rec Center. This lunch and lecture event is for alumni, students and friends of CU. For details, go to http://alumni.colorado.edu/back2boulder/back-to-boulder-luncheon.

Q: How have you applied what you learned at CU-Boulder in your career?

My time at CU was incredibly formative in developing my skills as an engineer, but more so in developing my understanding of the role engineers can play to benefit communities—both here in the States and around the world. At CU-Boulder, I completed a graduate degree under National Academy of Engineering member and CU Civil Engineering faculty member Bernard Amadei, founder of Engineers without Borders.  Since joining the B2P team in 2008, while still finishing my thesis at CU, I realized the importance of the connections and support network that I developed while studying. From both a professional and personal standpoint, my peers, students (I was a TA for a year) and faculty have been invaluable in forming my understanding of impact and how to use our skills to make the world a better place.

Q: Why is Bridges for Prosperity and its mission so important?

I first become involved with B2P after living in Fiji during a semester abroad, and I had the opportunity to visit the remote island of Taveuni, where the New Zealand government had recently built a bridge. The pedestrian bridge was life changing for community members living on the near side of the river, who were previously isolated from school nearly half of the year. Since the construction of the bridge, farmers had access to the weekly market, kids were able to go to school and the entire community now had access to the health care facility in town. I suppose you could say I had a “Eureka!” moment, realizing that something as simple as a footbridge could have such a profound impact for thousands of people.

Q: Why is it important for college student groups to participate in and be empowered through programs like B2P?

I think we'll always be interested in engaging students in our work both to broaden and refresh our perspective and to engage a younger generation in projects that provide professional and personal development opportunities while making real progress in rural transportation development.

Our University Program engages students from universities around the world, providing resources and opportunities to use academic training to provide essential infrastructure for villagers coping with rural isolation. Largely drawing from engineering programs, the University Program empowers students to apply their values and new skills to bridge projects all over the world, and in doing so, access opportunities in team building, leadership development and cross-cultural exchanges that are life changing. In the next year, this program will engage more than 150 students in bridge projects in multiple countries, and we are proud to play a part in developing the next generation of engineers into global citizens. 

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