Transcend Trains University Students To Use Generative Design To Solve Brazil's Wastewater Treatment Challenges

The public-private collaboration with nonprofits and local universities was supported by investor Elemental Excelerator’s equitable Square Partnerships project model

Transcend, a SaaS provider of generative design tools for critical infrastructure, today announces an international project training engineering students across five universities in Brazil to use its Transcend Design Generator (TDG) software platform to design wastewater infrastructure for at-risk communities. Transcend partnered with Brazilian nonprofit LuTeS Urbanas, engineering firm Taboa Engenharia, and universities like the State University of Maringá in Paraná as part of a new replicable project model funded and supported by nonprofit investor Elemental Excelerator.

Through this collaboration, students at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, University of São Paulo and other educational institutions have mastered the TDG, an intuitive, online generative design platform that enables capital planners, project developers, and engineering professionals to rapidly generate preliminary engineering designs for critical infrastructure. The designs created by the 50 students trained so far through the program would impact up to 200,000 Brazilians if implemented. These students join a growing cohort of engineers around the world who already using the platform, including engineers at leading firms such as BRK Ambiental, Arcadis and Xylem.

“Students are hungry to experience real-world applications for their engineering education, particularly when those experiences have a real positive impact on the resilience of their communities,” said Transcend Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer Adam Tank. “We saw the of need for improved wastewater infrastructure design tools in Brazil, and an opportunity to train a future generation of engineers to use those tools to improve their communities after graduation.”

Communities around the world struggle with aging sanitation systems and water treatment facilities that must meet ever increasing regulatory standards, adopt more sustainable treatment strategies and improve resilience to changing weather patterns and population changes. This is especially pertinent across Brazil where only 40% of sewage is treated. Brazil’s favela neighborhoods have some of the highest need for clean, reliable water, yet these communities lack resources to implement solutions. As a result, these communities suffer from poorly treated water and higher rates of disease and mortality.

Transcend received funding from Elemental Excelerator’s Square Partnerships Prize to implement this project with Taboa Engenharia, a Rio-based sustainable engineering firm, and LuTeS, a Rio-based nonprofit organization that mobilizes high school youth for community activities. The collaboration connected local, high impact organizations, schools, and community members from the Rochinha and Maré neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro through a bottom-up approach.

“This is exactly the type of project that we envisioned when we created the Square Partnerships Prize, which aims to help tech companies like Transcend engage directly with community organizations and the people its solutions will impact,” Elemental Excelerator Founder and CEO Dawn Lippert said. “After this project, students will graduate with the skills and resources to tackle the challenges that they face in their own communities.”

“Not only did the students learn how to use the most innovative software solutions available in the engineering industry today, they also applied their knowledge to better understand local issues in our favelas and design creative solutions,” said Leonardo Adler, founder of sanitation education nonprofit Taboa Engenharia.

Transcend expects to replicate this model in other regions in need of innovative wastewater infrastructure solutions, and where skilled engineering talent is in highest demand. For more information, visit transcendinfra.com.

About Transcend
Transcend is a leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company, developing generative design engineering tools for the global engineering, construction, technology/OEM, and utility sectors. Their revolutionary platform, the Transcend Design Generator (TDG), integrates various engineering design disciplines into a hosted cloud-based software, enabling users to input data and automatically generate complete preliminary engineering designs for a wide range of critical infrastructure projects and vertical assets. For more information, visit transcendinfra.com.

About Elemental Excelerator
Elemental is a nonprofit investor in climate technologies with deep community impact. We bring more than a decade of experience across the climate sector, with an active and maturing portfolio of 150+ companies. Elemental fills two gaps fundamental to addressing climate change: funding projects for climate technologies in communities, and embedding equity and access into climate solutions. We invest in transformative technologies to create a systems change for a more resilient, equitable future. For more information, visit elementalexcelerator.com.