Engineers Without Borders (EWB) USA supports community-driven development programs worldwide by collaborating with local partners to design and implement sustainable engineering projects, all while creating transformative experiences and responsible leaders. Founded in 2004, Columbia University's student chapter follows this mission by working on sustainable engineering projects in Ghana, Morocco, and Uganda. One of the most important things to understand about EWB as an organization is that it was founded in response to failed attempts of western aid to the developing world. In the past fifty years, millions of dollars have been thrown at development projects without much regard to the long-term. Nonprofits often go into developing communities, identify things that they consider to be problematic, build stop-gate solutions, and then essentially say “good luck.” There are serious issues with this model. Projects are not successful and people continue to be in duress, sans water, sans education, sans proper healthcare. In response, EWB acknowledges the fact that the people best suited to identify problems in the developing world are those people living there in the first place. EWB’s model is one of response. Communities in need reach out to the national chapter with a project proposal and EWB’s constituent chapters respond by signing on to specific projects. On top of that, EWB requires that chapters follow-up with their partner communities for a set period of time after project implementation to ensure that the ownership of the project has been successfully transferred to the community members.