Two Generations of EPI Alumni United by the Drive to Build Solutions
- Luis Diego Molina
- Jul 23
- 4 min read
At a large festival with more than 1,600 attendees, hundreds of projects, and countless activities, an unusual meeting took place between two people who shared a common passion: engineering with a social and ecological focus.
It happened at the Festival “Mi Comunidad Sustentable” (My Sustainable Community), held April 28 in La Paz, Baja California Sur, where EPI Mexico students wrapped up their educational process by presenting projects with social and environmental impact.
Amid the crowd, the noise, and the activities, the unusual meeting happened when Enrique Guemez, an EPI student nearly 20 years ago, evaluated the project of Cristhian Robles, who had joined EPI just a few months earlier.
Cristhian, who won gold in the Festival's Science category, presented an impressive robot prototype he designed himself: a modular, self-sustaining backhoe model inspired by a real-world problem he observed during two months working on a shrimp farm in Sinaloa:
diesel-powered heavy machinery is costly, polluting, and impractical for small farms. The prototype, called the NEXUS-X Backhoe, aims to be a low-cost, lower-environmental-impact machine for farmers.
The project impressed Enrique, an engineer and founder of the Mexican branch of an international nonprofit called Ingenieros Sin Fronteras (Engineers Without Borders), whose mission is to advance the field for humanitarian and sustainability purposes, focusing on community projects around water, housing, solar energy, sanitation, income-generating initiatives, and technical education. After the Festival, Enrique reached out to Cristhian to see if he'd be interested in volunteering with his organization to develop projects similar to his own.
"It caught our attention because through engineering he wants to improve a farming practice that, if improved, could benefit shrimp producers. If we can see that we're able to support a young person with this kind of motivation, that's exactly what we're looking for, to plant in him the seed that he can build solutions to improve his community," Enrique explains.
Enrique has a long history with EPI. Since 2008 he took part in the organization's water quality monitoring and environmental education projects. He also worked as a mentor for the Californios Verdes alumni Eco Club and received an EPI eco-entrepreneur grant for a statewide used-battery collection campaign, which led him to win a 2012 state youth award for environmental protection.
Enrique when he was a student, and later a mentor, at EPI
"Later I founded this humanitarian engineering association, and now I've come back to collaborate with EPI, now as a sister association. We've already been in talks, and they invited us to take part in this festival as project evaluators. The idea is to take what I learned with EPI over our many years together and put it into practice with these new talents, and try to close the circle," Enrique says.
And it's in that search to support new talent that the encounter with Cristhian comes in. The student's interest in creating this prototype arose not only because he comes from a family involved in shrimp farming, but because during the two months he worked on the farm in Sinaloa, he identified the need to create suitable machinery for small farms.
"It's not that I had the knowledge before getting the hands-on experience — rather, I observed the problem and, based on that, started researching on my own to come up with an idea for how to solve it. School gave me the resources to be able to research on my own and gather a bit more information so I could properly work out the calculations and all the technical data I needed," Cristhian explains.
The NEXUS-X prototype at different stages of development
A few months earlier, Cristhian had presented a simpler first prototype at a science fair at his school, and it was his teachers who encouraged him to enter the EPI Festival. In the process he refined his design — the version that won and caught Enrique's attention.
Cristhian just graduated from high school and is about to begin studying electromechanical engineering. He originally had mechatronics or robotics in mind, but during the development of this project he realized he's more interested in mechanical topics and electronics, which is why he decided to change his major.
"My idea is to keep carrying my project forward, through whatever projects the university asks of us. The plan is to keep following it, let it keep growing, and see if there's any possibility of making a change or building a larger-scale prototype," Cristhian says.
As for Enrique reaching out to him after the EPI Festival, Cristhian explains that "for me it was a huge opportunity. It made me feel really honored that the project was considered. For me it's very inspiring."
Beyond wanting to connect with Engineers Without Borders, Cristhian wants to join the Californios Verdes Eco Club, and stay connected with both organizations, just as Enrique stayed connected with EPI years ago.
Connections like the one that arose between them, and that is just beginning, aren't always planned, but when they happen they are deeply inspiring. At EPI, we hope to keep building bridges that allow this kind of encounter to keep happening for many years to come.
