Barco Heritage to Global Impact: Engineering for a Better Future
Barco What began as a celebration of Barco’s heritage turned into something much more meaningful: an opportunity to support communities around the world.
The initiative brought together Barco employees around a shared appreciation for the company’s history. Vintage Barco radios and televisions were put up for auction, giving colleagues the chance to own a piece of the company’s past. Employees could also take part in Experience Center tours and contribute through catering initiatives. What made the effort particularly special was that every contribution, large or small, helped create a positive impact beyond Barco.
Together, employees raised funds that were then matched by Barco, bringing the total donation to €10,000 for Engineers Without Borders Belgium.
The initiative demonstrated how employee engagement, company heritage, and social responsibility can come together to create meaningful change.
“What made this initiative so special was the enthusiasm of our colleagues. People came together around a shared passion for Barco’s heritage, and in doing so created something that ultimately helped make a positive difference far beyond our organization.”
Lien Meuleman, Chief HR Officer at Barco
Turning heritage into impact
The auction was more than an opportunity to purchase vintage equipment. It became a way for employees to connect with Barco’s history while contributing to a cause that reflects the company’s broader values.
For decades, Barco has been driven by technology, engineering, and innovation. The initiative offered a different way to put those values into action: by supporting people who use engineering expertise to address some of the fundamental challenges facing communities around the world.
Engineers Without Borders Belgium was a natural beneficiary.
For more than three decades, the organization has brought together volunteer engineers who want to use their knowledge and professional experience to improve living conditions for vulnerable communities, particularly across the Global South. Its work focuses on sustainable solutions in three key areas: water, waste, and energy.
Rather than simply delivering technical solutions, Engineers Without Borders works closely with local communities and partners to understand their needs and develop approaches that can have a lasting impact.
Where engineering meets purpose
At the heart of the partnership between Barco and Engineers Without Borders is a shared belief: engineering creates the greatest value when it serves people.
For Engineers Without Borders, engineering is about much more than designing systems or solving technical problems. It is about understanding the context in which a solution will be used and ensuring that the people who benefit from it are involved throughout the process.
The organization works with trusted local partners, listens to community needs, and co-creates solutions with the people who will ultimately use them. Its volunteers provide technical support both onsite and remotely, while also helping build local knowledge and capabilities.
This approach is essential to creating solutions that remain effective long after a project has been completed.
Sustainability is therefore not simply about the technology itself. It is about creating the skills, knowledge, partnerships, and local ownership needed to ensure that a solution continues to deliver value over time.
Many of the volunteers involved with Engineers Without Borders have professional profiles similar to those of Barco engineers: experienced specialists who want to use their technical expertise beyond their day-to-day roles.
Their motivation is simple but powerful — to apply what they know to challenges where engineering can improve people’s lives.
Community projects with lasting impact
Employees at Barco had the opportunity to learn more about this work during a presentation at the company’s headquarters in Kortrijk. Representatives from Engineers Without Borders shared examples of projects that demonstrate how engineering can address practical challenges while creating opportunities for communities.
One example is a sustainable water and sanitation project for a girls’ school in Togo. Access to safe water and adequate sanitation can have a profound effect on health, education, and everyday life, particularly for children and young women. By developing sustainable infrastructure and working alongside local partners, projects such as this can help create healthier and more supportive environments for students.
In Senegal, another project focuses on supporting women farmers through solar-powered irrigation. Reliable access to water can help farmers increase food production, strengthen nutrition, and create greater economic opportunities. By combining renewable energy with agricultural needs, the project demonstrates how technical innovation can contribute to both environmental and social progress.
Other initiatives include a biodigester for a school in Burundi and the solar electrification of a healthcare center in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Each project addresses a specific local need, but together they illustrate a broader principle: when engineering is designed around people and their circumstances, its impact can extend far beyond the original technical solution.
Better access to water can improve health. Renewable energy can strengthen food production and livelihoods. Reliable electricity can help healthcare facilities operate more effectively. Sustainable waste solutions can protect communities and the environment.
These are practical challenges, but they require thoughtful engineering, collaboration, and long-term commitment to solve.
A reminder of what engineering can achieve
For Barco employees, the initiative offered more than an opportunity to support a charitable organization. It was also a reminder of the potential impact that technical expertise can have outside the workplace.
Engineering is often associated with products, systems, infrastructure, and innovation. Yet behind every successful engineering project are people whose lives can be improved by the solutions created.
Supporting Engineers Without Borders allows Barco to contribute to that broader vision of engineering — one that combines expertise with empathy and innovation with purpose.
The €10,000 donation represents the collective contribution of employees and the company. More importantly, it reflects what can happen when people come together around a common goal.
The initiative also highlights the role that employee engagement can play in creating social impact. A vintage radio, a company tour, or a catering contribution may seem like a small gesture on its own. Together, however, these individual actions created an opportunity to support projects with tangible benefits for communities thousands of kilometers away.
Engineering for a better future
Engineers Without Borders Belgium works with approximately 35 to 40 active volunteers and supports five to ten projects each year. Its work focuses on sustainable solutions in water, waste, and energy, with an emphasis on local partnerships, capacity building, and responsible engineering.
But its mission extends beyond individual projects.
The organization also promotes the principles of human-centered engineering through conferences, university outreach programs, and awards designed to inspire the next generation of engineers.
This focus on education and awareness is important because sustainable development depends not only on today’s solutions, but also on the engineers, innovators, and communities that will shape tomorrow.
For Barco, supporting Engineers Without Borders is therefore an opportunity to connect its own culture of engineering and innovation with a wider purpose.
The initiative started with Barco’s past — vintage radios and televisions that reflected the company’s technological heritage. It ended by helping contribute to a more sustainable future for communities around the world.
That journey captures an important idea: our heritage can inspire our future, and our expertise can create impact far beyond our own walls.
By bringing employees together, matching their contributions, and supporting Engineers Without Borders Belgium, Barco has shown how collective action can turn a simple initiative into something much bigger.
When engineering is combined with purpose, collaboration, and a commitment to local communities, technology becomes more than a tool for innovation. It becomes a means of creating opportunity, strengthening communities, and improving lives.
And that is perhaps the most meaningful connection between Barco and Engineers Without Borders: a shared belief that expertise has its greatest value when it is used to make a difference.
Source Link: https://www.barco.com/