THE NEWSLETTER OF THE SYDNEY DIVISION OF ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA SYDNEY DIVISION KEY SPONSORS
SEPTEMBER 2011
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Engineering Week 2011 Every year in August, Engineers Australia holds Engineering Week nationally. All of the Divisions around Australia hold their own events, in celebration and recognition of engineering and engineers. Engineering Week is important as it’s really about public engagement and education. It’s about showing non-engineers, what engineers do. This year, I was fortunate enough to be a part of numerous events across Sydney. In the Launch event, Splash, which is usually held out in Manly Beach, children of all ages were encouraged to make paper aeroplanes, play with sandcastles and see some engineering displays. What really stood out from this day, is the effect that parents have on their kids in considering engineering as a career. Throughout the day, we were approaching parents to have their kids become involved in various competitions. Some parents were so encouraging in making sure that their kids went through each of the displays, played with the paper aeroplanes and spoke to the volunteers who were there on the day. In fact, many engineering academics now believe that it is the parents who should be educated on our profession, as well as the kids. When a year 12 student is picking their choices for university, parents have significant influence on that choice and often steer their kids into picking a degree which they believe is going to present a stable career, good prospects and is of course interesting. We need to educate parents and the public at large such that our profession is held in the same esteem as that of lawyers and the doctors, for it certainly is a difficult degree to get through and leads to the most interesting career prospects. This is one of the main reasons why
Engineering Week is so important. During the week, many of the engineering companies around Sydney open their doors to site visits. The week included a panel discussion on a hot topic (this year it was about cycle ways in Sydney which attracted many cyclists to the event), and of course the prestigious Harricks Address, which was delivered by the CEO of Cochlear, Chris Roberts. To keep with the Year of Humanitarian Engineering, Mike Dureau spoke about RedR, together with a young engineer, Stephanie Hamel, who had spent time in humanitarian work in East Timor. It is these events which highlight just some of the things that engineers do, and it is these events, which the public should be encouraged to attend. As members of Engineers Australia, I hope that all of our readers get involved in engineering week in some way next year. Have your company host a site tour, volunteer to get people to an event, or just talk to family and friends about the profession and get non-engineers to an event during the week. We need everyone’s help to make it so. PS. Thank you to all of our volunteers and Gary Caldarola (Chair of the Engineering Week committee) for their hard work for engineering week 2011! Twitter: @EASyd_President Maryam Khajeh, MIEAust Sydney Division President