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One summer Calvin Rieder (Year 2 MIE) went camping with his family. During the night, dew condensed on the inside of his tent, rolled down the fabric wall and made his pillow wet. To most, this event would mean minor discomfort. But to Rieder, that tiny rivulet of water inspired a design for an atmospheric water condenser — a portable device that pulls clean, drinkable water out of thin air.

Since waking up that morning in his tent, Rieder’s passion for developing sustainable solutions to address the urgent need for clean, potable water in developing nations has led him to become a member of the World Youth Parliament for Water, and was recently named in Plan Canada’s Top 20 Under 20. Now, his drive to promote universal access to clean water has put him centre stage on the famous TEDxToronto red carpet.

U of T Engineering undergraduate student Calvin Rieder (Year 2 MIE) talks about his solar-powered still that purifies dirty water.

“We have to make changes that have sustainable impact — if we don’t, we won’t survive,” he told an audience of more than 1,000 attendees at the October 26 event, organized on the theme of ‘Symbols + Signals’. “I wanted to get clean water to where it’s needed, with no negative impact on the environment.”

“I didn’t want to create one problem while trying to solve another, so I thought about three things: accessibility, affordability and sustainability.” The first morning he went to check on his prototype, he was thrilled by the macabre scene: “The collecting basin was full of drowned flies, and I was delighted that there was enough water in there to do that.”

Currently a second-year engineering student in the Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Rieder is also working on a solar-powered still that purifies dirty water of both physical and bacterial contaminants. His vision is not only to supply drinkable water to rural, remote and developing nations where water treatment infrastructure is scarce or nonexistent, but to supplement overtaxed urban water resources.

Rieder was one of 18 thinkers, artists, researchers and inventors invited to speak and perform at TEDxToronto, an independently organized event dedicated to the core TED concept of sharing “ideas worth spreading.” Ryan Janzen (ECE PhD candidate) demonstrates a prototype of the TransPod, his team’s answer to ultra-rapid direct transit. (Courtesy: TEDxToronto)

Joining Rieder in the 2016 speaker lineup was Ryan Janzen (ECE PhD candidate). Janzen shared his vision for a future of ultra-rapid, sustainable transit that alters the way we conceive of our world — when Montreal is 45 minutes from New York, Janzen hypothesized, continents will start to feel like a single community.

“Romans built the aqueducts. What can our civilization create or build that will last? What be our aqueducts, for generations to come?”

Janzen is on a team trying to design a Hyperloop, the term coined by entrepreneur and Tesla founder Elon Musk to describe the super-speed transportation of goods and people in tubes. Janzen demonstrated his team’s response to Musk’s call, called the TransPod.

“There’s a tube, and inside that tube is a spacecraft,” said Janzen. “The future of transportation will be our legacy to our grandchildren. It’s on a mass scale, but it’s also about personal choices. I challenge you to make a personal choice today.”

Ryan Janzen (ECE PhD candidate) talks about his team’s design for the Hyperloop, a new form of transportation for goods and people.

In addition to Rieder and Janzen, six other University of Toronto professors, researchers and alumni shared their unforgettable ideas from the big red carpet:

More on U of T Engineering speakers at TEDxToronto