World Engineers Summit - Success story of 2013, Declaration & Awards
From 7th to 14th September some 100 renowned speakers and 2,000 international delegates from 90 countries gathered to explore the theme of 'Innovative and Sustainable Solutions to Climate Change'. This inaugural World Engineers Summit was generously hosted by the Institution of Engineers Singapore in spectacular style at the Marina Bay Sands - an engineering marvel in itself. The event included:
Keynote speakers from the UN, Asia Development Bank, the Singaporean Government, CEOs from corporations and non-profits and leading academics.
Build Eco Xpo on sustainable and green solutions in construction.
The conference declaration - the 'Singapore Declaration' - called for further engagement of engineers in global political processes and for engineers to develop new skills for a changing world. WFEO and the global engineering profession made particular commitments in the declaration, including:
Developing national sustainable systems and infrastructure and resilient development strategies and action plans.
Engage in building engineering capacity through active collaboration with development organisations.
Represent engineering views to effectively influence programs on sustainable infrastructure and systems in the United Nations system.
The presentation ceremony of the biennial WFEO awards was also held at the World Engineers Summit:
The WFEO Medal of Engineering Excellence was awarded to Prof. Ching Chuen Chan PhD for his contributions to the advancement of theory, practice, commercialisation of electric vehicles and creative engineering education.
The WFEO Medal of Excellence in Engineering Education was awarded to Prof. Xila Liu for his work on national and international engineering education strategies and programmes.
WFEO Vice-President Gong Ke appointed to advise UN Secretary General
Prof. Dr. Ke Gong, Vice-President of World Federation of Engineering Organisations, has been appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board of the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Gong Ke was in Berlin on 31st January to attend its Inaugural Meeting where Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for the science and technology communities to improve policy-making on sustainable development, reducing inequality and eradicating extreme poverty.
Prof. Gong is the President of Nankai University in China and has had an illustrious career in engineering academia, including serving as President of Tianjin University and being Director of Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology. He chairs the WFEO Committee on Information and Communication and is a member of the Standing Committee of the China Association for Science and Technology, the WFEO National Member from China.
Code of Practice for Sustainable Development now available in Spanish
The WFEO Model Code of Practice for Sustainable Development and Environmental Stewardship is available in English, French and now Spanish. The Interpretive Guide is now also available in Spanish.
The Model Code is presented for consideration by engineering governing or registering bodies, by engineering firms and by individual engineers.
WFEO President Marwan Abdelhamid has busy start to term of office
Eng. Marwan Abdelhamid (left of picture) has promoted his agenda for the global engineering profession at numerous meetings and events since becoming WFEO President in September:
Nigerian Society of Engineers International Conference - Abuja, December 2013. Planning for November’s WECSI conference and agreed the 'Abuja Declaration' to focus on capacity building in the engineering profession in Africa. Met with Vice-President of Nigeria, The Honourable Namadi Sambo, to discuss support for the engineering profession in Africa and the forthcoming WECSI conference in Abuja (the meeting was originally scheduled with President Goodluck Jonathan, who was called away to attend the funeral of Nelson Mandela). Met with the President of the Federation of African Engineering Organisations and their Secretariat.
The President also shared a New Year message with National Members. The President’s agenda for coming months includes focusing on membership; support for fundraising initiatives; attending key conferences; and chairing the WFEO Executive Board meeting in Paris in April.
Update from the WFEO Executive Director and Standing Technical Committees
First, welcome to this bumper edition of the WFEO newsletter which comes at a very busy time for WFEO.
The World Engineers Summit in Singapore was a great success. We are now preparing for the World Engineering Conference on Sustainable Infrastructure in Abuja in November, following a very positive visit to the hosts and the venue before the Christmas holidays. The next Executive Council meeting will be held there on Thursday 6th November.
We are making efforts to recruit new national members, and to resume relations with those few whose membership has lapsed.
We are also completing our annual financial reporting and are getting ready for the next Executive Board meeting from 7 – 11 April in Paris.
Some quick internal updates:
The WFEO Secretariat office will shortly be moving from our current location in the UNESCO NGO House to a better space on the 8th floor of the UNESCO building itself. Our contact details will remain the same.
The Marketing Task Force has been working hard on fundraising and communications initiatives. They have recruited a consultant from the UK, Andrew Lamb, to support their work. Andrew was previously the Chief Executive of Engineers Without Borders UK and has experience of WFEO from our collaboration on the UNESCO Engineering Report, for which he was the Technical Editor.
The Strategic Planning Task Force is being developed to lead the creation of the new WFEO strategy.
Director of Communication Roxanne Suran left WFEO in autumn last year.
International Affairs Project Manager Houda Ait-Mik left WFEO at the end of the year but will continue to engage with us as a volunteer during her studies.
WFEO Standing Technical Committee updates:
Committee on Education: proceedings are now available for the 9th World Congress on Engineering Education. The congress also issued the Beirut Declaration calling for: closer co-operation between industry and universities on practical training; research that is rooted in the local context; job creation through university innovation spin-outs; a move towards creating rather than consuming in the economy; better training on ethics.
Committee on Engineering and Innovative Technologies: their latest newsletter introduces the committee’s agenda and highlights the Indian Engineering Congress and the committee’s current plan in particular.
Committee on Disaster Risk Management: their latest newsletter reports on their activities over the 2012/13 year, outlines their action plan to 2017 and reports from recent meetings and events in Japan, Singapore and Tasmania.
Committee on the Environment: their latest newsletter includes a call for leadership within the engineering profession on sustainable development, an introduction to the Code of Practice and reports on the opportunities for engineers in the Sustainable Development Goals after Rio+20. There is also an article on Corporate Social Responsibility in China.
The Africa Prize will encourage ambitious and talented sub-Saharan African engineers from all disciplines to apply their skills to develop scalable solutions to local challenges. It will highlight the importance of engineering as an enabler of improved quality of life and economic development.
Crucial commercialisation support will be awarded to a short-list of innovative applicants, through a six month period of training and mentoring.
Following this period of mentorship, finalists will be selected and invited to present at an event held in Africa and a winner will be selected to receive £25,000.
To find out more about the prize, or to get involved as a mentor or application reviewer, please contact Meredith Ettridge. More information will shortly be published on the Academy’s website.
New Associate Petrus Communications helps WFEO map global engineering
Amongst its portfolio, Petrus works with several leading engineering companies and universities to help promote careers in engineering. It regularly works with UNESCO on these projects.
Petrus is sponsoring a new WFEO project to map the global engineering profession. This will be a tool on our website to navigate the many hundreds of organisations that make up the profession. We have logged details of more than 400 organisations already, and users will be able to submit and renew their own entries.
New on WFEO website: the world's Engineers' Days, Declarations & more
Over the next few weeks we will be rolling out a new events system, a new email list system and a tweaked design. We will also add: the WFEO contributions to the UNESCO Engineering Report; information on UN-WFEO engagements; and analysis of global engineering statistics.
If you have any ideas, comments or corrections for the WFEO webite then please do contact us.
Selected engineering stories - good and bad news for the profession
