Welcome to the Community Insights blog!

This blog features posts from and about the EngX community. Want to contribute? Read our blogging guide to help you get started.

  • The IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards - **Headline Sponsorship Package**

    Read more about becoming a headline sponsor ''The IET is working with industry, government and academia to engage and influence young women with the purpose of promoting careers in science, engineering and technology. Sponsorship of this award allows your company the opportunity to address the shortage of female engineers, show support in diversity recruitment and gender equality, and actively recruit female engineers.'' Read more about becoming a headline sponsor

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member
  • ICE France Spring Lecture : Building Project Management

    For those who have not received the details direct from our ICE friends. Dear ICE members and friends in, or who visit, Paris, I would also like to remind you that our Spring Lecture will be held downstairs at Carr's on Thursday 16th April 2015. William Powles has kindly agreed to present a lecture on Building Project Management , drawing on his 29 years experience working in the French building sector. Full details are included in the attached flyer . There are still places available so place reservations to me please at the email address above. We will do our best to accommodate those who don't reserve, but obviously priority will be given to reservations. William's lecture will start at 19h00 so that this month the Institutions' (ICE, IET, IMechE, IStructE) joint social evening will precede…

    Phil Dunbar
  • Videos to Inspire You

    Take a look at some of the webinars that we have recorded. They cover things like unconscious bias in the workplace, stereotype threat, the art of ethical persuasion and more. Videos to Inspire You

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member
  • Inspiring the Future - Campaign

    Inspiring the Future launched the national Inspiring Women Campaign at an event hosted by Miriam González Durántez, Partner, Dechert and wife of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg with girls from 11 state secondary schools in London talking about careers with 10 high profile women - including Mumsnet founder Carrie Longton, broadcaster Fiona Bruce and EasyJet CEO Carolyn McCall. The Inspiring Women Campaign will see 15,000 women from a wide range of occupations going into state schools over the next year, talking to 250,000 young women. For more information...

  • Posters to Download and Print

    Take a look at our posters depicting women's contrbution to engineering during WW1 and careers into engineering to influence, children, parents and teachers! You can download, print, use as a screen saver in addition to sharing on social media! ' 'You and Engineering'' - Routes to your engineering career ''Celebrating Women Engineers'' - How women contributed to engineering during WW1 If you would like a professional printed copy, please e-mail womensnetwork@theiet.org with the poster you want, name and address for it to be sent to.

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member
  • Webinar With Marie Adeyemi - Integrated Design

    Marie Adeyemi talks about Integrated Design in this webinar. View the webinar.. .

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member
  • Growing membership in Kazakhstan

    New IET communities are at the forefront of work to grow membership throughout the world, especially in areas where there is no staff support on the ground. The rapid growth of an IET student community at Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev University shows what can be done where little activity existed previously. Founded in February 2014, the student community is thriving and has achieved much in its first 12 months. Established by the university’s Assistant Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Dr Yau Hee Kho, along with a group of proactive engineering students, it’s already held 15 events and has close to 200 members. As a long-term IET member, Dr Kho felt that the students had a lot to gain from involvement in the organisation, such as gaining professional registration, and so took…

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member
  • Learning a whole new way of thinking to design and build the world around us – Naomi Mitchison, 2014 IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year

    Naomi Mitchison is a Senior Hardware Engineer at Selex ES, specialising in laser warning systems for military aircraft. She grew up in Italy and moved to Edinburgh for university, graduating with an MEng in Electronic and Electrical Engineering in 2009. Her first role was with Thales in its cyber security department. Following this she returned to Edinburgh and joined Selex ES. Read more...

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member
  • Burgess Hill School for Girls is looking for female engineers to support a workshop, can you help?

    Date: Wednesday 1 st July 2015 Time: 9am-1pm approx. Venue: Burgess Hill School for Girls, Keymer Rd, West Sussex RH16 1LH Target: 80 girls, age 11-14. Format: WISE “It’s a girl thing” discussion workshop. We are seeking 3-4 female engineering role models who can be allocated to small groups during the workshop. Ideally the engineers could bring some ‘props’ (eg photos, video clips, models, materials etc) to help describe their work to the students. We want to get across the idea that engineering is for people who are imaginative, artistic, practical, visionary, questioning, enthusiastic, caring…… to combat the commonly held misconceptions! More details to follow. Contact: Katren Bishop, katrenbishop@burgesshill-school.com , 01444 241050 Posted on behalf of Burgess Hill School for Girls

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member
  • EU Looking To Reward Amazing Women Innovators

    With the aim of encouraging other people to follow in their footsteps, the European Commission wants to give public recognition to outstanding women entrepreneurs who brought their innovative ideas to the market. Launched in 2011, this is the third edition of the EU Prize for Women Innovators . The news was announced this week on International Women’s Day and the prize aims to raise awareness of the need for more female entrepreneurs. Read more...

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member
  • Free one-day event on the history of power and engineering 6 June 2015

    Conference on the history of power and engineering, Discovery Museum, Newcastle 6 June 2015 Register now for this free one-day event on the history of engineering, held at Newcastle’s Discovery Museum. The programme includes papers on a range of subjects, such as the history of power in the North East, Oliver Heaviside and Nikola Tesla. There will also be an opportunity to see the ‘Arcs and Sparks’ exhibition at the museum. For those who wish to stay or the weekend, we have an optional visit on Sunday 7 th June to Cragside, the first private property in the UK to employ hydroelectric power. More information on the event, along with the registration link, can be found here: http://www.theiet.org/events/local/218392.cfm

    Anne Locker
  • Scarborough Engineering Week

    The Video : https://communities.theiet.org/communities/videos/210/960 The Aim : To stimulate young minds to become Engineers. The Method : Present an insight into 21st century technology; show, not tell. Where : Scarborough, Yorkshire You have children or grandchildren or starting a career ? Watch this, or have the children watch this - if they aren't motivated then they're not engineering material. Why would anyone want to do anything other than science and engineering as a career? Beats me! Engineering, for girls and for boys. Great video from Ewan in York.

    Paul Smith, RPS
  • Very apt Dilbert cartoon

    "Can he lead a normal life?" "No, he'll be an engineer."

    Alex Barrett
  • Running A Successful Lifeskill Event

    This blog was written by guest blogger, Louise Tythe, Professional Skills Trainer with the IET Lifeskills are very popular events that are run by Local Network Representatives all over the UK. As a Professional Skills Trainer for the IET, part of my role is to deliver the Lifeskills events. In 2014, I delivered 32, Lifeskills in our UK Networks. I am aware that there are some Networks who are not taking advantage of these great events, and I want to help engage everyone in these essential workshops. Our free, UK based, Lifeskills workshops are designed to provide a brief introduction to 17 key topics, relevant to any professional looking to enhance their skill set. Our generic Lifeskills workshops focus on key soft skills, allowing us to complement the more technically-focused events produced…

  • IET Satcom Security and Efficiency Seminar

    If you missed the seminar in Birmingham on 27 November 2014, the presentations can now be found here .

    Deborah-Claire McKenzie
  • Supporting Event - Forum On “Convergence Of Cloud And Mobile”

    Event Name : Forum on “Convergence of Cloud and Mobile” Organized by: Hog Kong Linux Industry Association Hong Kong Trade Development Council Supported by: Hong Kong Productivity Council Hong Kong Computer Society Hong Kong Linux User Group The Electronic Science and Technology Association of Macau Information Technology Association Open Source Hong Kong Open Source Software Association Hong Kong Information Technology Joint Council Professional Association BCS(Hong Kong Section) Hong Kong Software Industry Association The Association of Cloud and Mobile Computing Professionals The Institution of Engineering and Technology Hong Kong Date: 13 April, 2015 (Monday) Time: 10:30 am – 12:30 am 2:00 pm – 4:30 pm Venue: Meeting Rooms S224 - S225, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Enquiry:…

    Dodi Mak
  • Air China opts for Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 Engines

    Air China has selected Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines to power its new 787-9 Boeing Dreamliner aircraft. The decision continues a strong relationship with the airline, which has 49 Trent 700-powered Airbus A330 aircraft in service, with four to be delivered, and 10 Trent XWB-powered Airbus A350XWB aircraft on order. Rolls-Royce powered the very first Boeing 787 test flight in December 2009, the first 787-8 to enter service in October 2011, and the first 787-9 to enter service, in 2014. (Article and image from ADS Newsletter).

    Deborah-Claire McKenzie
  • The Local Network 2015 Sponsored Student Project Competition

    The IET Northumbria Local Network Sponsored Student Project Competition: On Wednesday 11 March the IET Northumbria Local Network ran their annual competition between local North East Universities. The event took place at Newcastle Upon Tyne University in Merz Court Building and was attended by both academic staff and students from the Engineering departments of Durham, Sunderland, Northumbria and Newcastle universities. A full description of the event, including prizewinners and photographs can be found in the attached document. Dr P D Minns Chairman IET Northumbria Local Network 11 March 2015.

    Tom Fry
  • Managing Innovation; A Microchip Perspective.

    A few months ago I researched that transistor scaling can be up or down however always limited to physical surface area. To keep a positive advantage beyond R & D budgets, some companies also look at other players in the same field too gain more market share, so that their new products have an automatic requirement to fulfil.   Some traditional desktop companies, launch an intent for smart-phone markets, augmenting away from their core of traditional chips for PC's which are currently reaching revenues of $50b, possibly due to their core technology-chip innovation methods such as energy-saving designs vs computing-power, all within the surface area confined of Moores law which states 'the number of transistors placed on a microchip would double every year'. This adds to the race of semi conductor…

  • Expanding your daughter’s career horizons by banishing outdated misconceptions about careers in STEM

    William Webb is President of the IET (The Institution of Engineering and Technology) and is CEO of the Weightless SIG, the standards body developing a new global M2M technology. Prior to this William was a Director at Ofcom where he managed a team providing technical advice and performing research across all areas of Ofcom’s regulatory remit. William has a first class honours degree in electronics, a PhD and an MBA.

    Alex Barrett
  • Historical News

    Edwards AFB Tour - April 24th, 2015 Registration for this tour has opened - see https://localevents.theiet.org/d1a4ed Registration has closed - tour is full. (March 24th, 2015) Google Car and Culture Meeting The February 28th meeting at Google, Inc., Irvine, CA was very successful. See meeting flyer for details. See below for IET Calendar file entry. Local Network Calendar Update - Meeting Postponement The January 24th meeting at Blizzard Entertainment, Irvine, CA has had to be rescheduled due to problems beyond the control of the Committee. The Committee apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused. The tour has been rescheduled to Friday, January 30th, 2015 and is now fully booked . This tour was cancelled at the last minute and now may occur in May or July. Local Network Calendar…

    Former Staff Member
  • Norwich Hackspace/Makerspace Meetup

    We are a group of hackers, tinkerers, techies, engineers, artists and makers of all kinds. We have just formed and are setting out to build a community of like-minded people to share skills and knowledge, learn about technologies and try out new things. We are working towards a physical open community workshop space to offer access to interesting people and interesting tools, such as laser cutters and 3D printers. There will be regular meetups, project show ’n tells and learning sessions for everybody. For more information on hackspaces, see the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace or come to one of our meetups and see the magic happening! http://www.meetup.com/Norwich-Hack-Makerspace-Meetup/

    Alex Barrett
  • Rex Johns Student Presentation Prize

    Last Tuesday evening saw the prestigious Rex Johns Student Presentation Prize event take place. This event, that forms part of the IET’s Present Around The World competition and took place at Engineers Australia's Adelaide city centre Divisional Office. The event saw students from each of the main universities from South Australia compete for first prize of one years free membership to the IET and $300, and second prize of $200. The IET would like to sincerely thank the judges for giving the time and expertise so willingly. I am sure the students who took part would also echo this sentiment. This year, our judges were: David Tamlin - GPA Engineering Marek Pszczel - IEEE Miroslav Kotecki - Stemsel Foundation The students who participated were from Mechanical and Electrical courses, and the presentations…

    Julie
  • Sacred Cows - Revisiting Fundamental Safety Principles

    As a safety engineer for the last 30 years I am used to working within specified limitations. As technology has developed over the last decades, we have managed to improve capacity to a point where these self-imposed industry limitations are now the main constraint on throughput. There has been no serious accident on London Underground since 1975 (Moorgate) and on Network Rail since 2007 (Grayrigg) but will re-assessing these constraints affect the safety of our transport systems and make our journeys less safe? More importantly are we “too safe” at the moment and by revisiting these constraints will we increase (albeit slightly) the risk of an accident, but at the same time reduce the overcrowding and congestion on our roads and thus from a “system” view actually improve safety? This event…

    Deborah-Claire McKenzie