Humanitarian Engineering in Latin America (HELA) at LACCEI 2026
New Deadline: March 2nd, 2026
Aligned with the theme of joint LACCEI/OAS conference theme “Engineering without Borders: Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge, Innovation, and Alliances for a Future from the Americas”, there will be a track related to HELA with the goals to:
- Propose guiding principles, practices, and exemplars to align engineering, AI, knowledge, innovation and Alliances for a equitable, and social just future for all the Americas, specially vulnerable communities.
- Showcase examples of Humanitarian and Community Engaged Engineering initiatives in different institutional and national contexts of the Americas countries.
- Create a network of engineering professionals and educators committed to advancing HELA to serve the most vulnerable communities in the Americas.
To accomplish these goals, HELA track will have speakers, call for papers, and a collaborative network building activity. We will showcase innovative initiatives and create a network of professionals and educators dedicated to promoting humanitarian and community-engaged engineering in the region. Join us in shaping a future where technology serves as a catalyst for social good.
Speakers
Proposed and selected speakers should be able to present guiding principles, practices, and exemplars to align engineering, AI, knowledge, innovation and Alliances for a equitable, and social just future for all in the Americas, specially vulnerable communities. Possible speakers include:
- Rodrigo Palma
- Sophia Schlezack
- Juan Lucena and Sandra Merchán
- Pali Singh
Call for Papers
We invite submissions of papers that highlight innovative initiatives related to Humanitarian and Community Engaged Engineering (HE) in the Americas. They must be aligned with the three main categories of Engineering of the Multiconference and Full Paper Format (hybrid):
- ENGINEERING EDUCATION (EE)
- ENGINEERING RESEARCH (ER)
- ENGINEERING PRACTICE (EP)
What is a humanitarian and community engaged engineering initiative?
It is an educational or professional initiative that reimagine engineering to achieve social justice, equity, and sustainable development for the most vulnerable people.
We invite papers that showcase examples of HE-related initiatives such as courses, projects, incubators (semilleros), design competitions, learn-by-doing spaces (makerspaces, aulas STEAM, etc.), and meet the following criteria:
- Clearly describe the drivers that led to the creation of the HE-related initiative beyond the good intentions of faculty and students to solve a community problem. These could include fulfilling an institutional mission of social responsibility, how a community requested the services of engineers at a university, responding to specific government or corporate calls to serve the needs of vulnerable communities, etc.
- Clearly describe how interdisciplinary collaborations between engineering and non-engineering disciplines (social sciences, life sciences, business, social work, etc.) did (or could have) contributed to more successful initiatives.
- Clearly describe how the beneficiaries of the initiatives (communities, schools, persons with disabilities) were (or could have been) involved throughout the initiative, hopefully beyond being mere recipients of engineering solutions.
Important Dates
October 6, 2025 – Call for Paper (CfP) – Register hereOctober 6, 2025 – Early bird registration openJanuary 31, 2026 – Deadline for Full Papers (FP) and Work in Progress (WP) submissions (Eastern Daylight Time – EDT)February 16, 2026 – Extension – New Deadline for FP and WP submissions (Eastern Daylight Time – EDT)- March 2, 2026 (Only HELA Track) – New Deadline for FP submissions (EDT)
- April 20, 2026 – Acceptance notification for FP
- April 30, 2025 – Submit final version of the accepted paper (FP)
AGENDA OF HELA 2026
Thursday: July 17, 2025
8.00-9.00: Plenary of HELA 2025: What is, or what should humanitarian engineering be?
Steering Committee
Co-Chairs
- Dr. Juan Lucena. Colorado School of Mines. USA
- Dr. Pali Singh. Villanova University. USA
Program Coordinator
- ● Dr. Sandra Merchan Rubiano. Researcher. Universidad de La Salle. Colombia.
Members
Dr. Roberto Giordano. Dean of Universidad FASTA. Argentina.
How to send my paper?
- Login in ConfTool LACCEI 2026: https://www.conftool.pro/laccei2026/index.php?page=index
- If you do not have a ConfTool-LACCEI 2026 account, you must create one.
- Select the option: “Your Submission”
- Select the track “Humanitarian Engineering in Latin America” (See image below). Click here
