Very apt Dilbert cartoon
"Can he lead a normal life?" "No, he'll be an engineer."
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"Can he lead a normal life?" "No, he'll be an engineer."
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…
If you missed the seminar in Birmingham on 27 November 2014, the presentations can now be found here .
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:…
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).
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.
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…
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.
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…
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/
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…
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…
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…
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…
How does the CPD Policy change affect you? In October 2013, The Engineering Council announced an aspiration that by January 2017 all Professional Engineering Institutions will have introduced a policy of random reviewing of Professionally Active Registrants’ CPD Returns. You may have seen from recent promotion that the IET’s Board of Trustees have now agreed that the IET should meet this aspiration, and are extending it as a benefit to all IET members. The IET recognises a number of activities as counting toward your CPD including: Training Courses, Work Experience, Academic study, Volunteering, attending Events and Self-Study – these were explored in a bit more depth in our CPD Elements blog series . What has changed? If you are a member of the IET, then you have already committed to keeping…
Skylon - The future of Space Transportation. On Thursday 4 June 2015, the IET Eastern Region is organising an event at Duxford IWM where there will be a talk by Richard Bond of Reaction Engines on the revolutionary new UK spacecraft. All attendees will get entry to the museum and a buffet. No fee. Details in the events section of this website.
Some kids are more inquisitive than others. *WATCH* our brand new film. There are %u202A# LittleEngineers%u202C out there everywhere. Today (30th March 2015) is the launch of our ‘Engineer a Better World’ campaign, which aims to tell parents and children, particularly girls, about the diverse range of creative, exciting and challenging careers in modern engineering. To kick off the campaign, we have carried out in-depth and online research with children aged 9-12 and their parents – and produced a short film to demonstrate young people’s natural fascination with everyday engineering problems and solutions: www.engineer-a-better-world.org The research confirms many of the things we have known anecdotally for some time. But it also tells us clearly that if we could consistently show parents…
Calling all inspirational young female engineers. The IET has launched its 2015 Young Woman Engineer of the Year (YWE) Awards to celebrate inspirational young women and what they have achieved as engineers. The IET is calling on successful female engineers aged under 35 working in the UK in any engineering discipline, to consider submitting an entry for this renowned industry award, which helps demonstrate how diverse and exciting a career in engineering can be. Entrants do not need to be an IET member to apply. The role of the awards is hugely important, as the IET’s latest Skills and Demand in Industry survey found that only six per cent of the current engineering workforce is female, a figure that has changed little in the past few years. The lack of women in engineering needs to change…
The IET has arranged for a presentation on the 3rd amendment to the 17th edition of the Wiring Regulations. Expected changes include improving fire safety aspects of consumer units, and wiring for escape routes. Additional changes will affect the way that electrical installations are designed and inspected. The presentation is aimed at designers, constructors and inspectors of electrical installations and is free of charge. Membership of the IET is NOT required. The presentation will be held at York College, Tadcaster Road, York YO22 2BB, in the Alan Ayckbourn Theatre on 21st April 2015 at 7 p.m. for a 7.30 p.m. start. Please make sure you register for this event at the following link before 20th April 2015 www.theiet.org/events/local/217066.cfm
Organized by: Hong Kong Trade Development Council Supported by: APP, HKIDA, HKIA, IDSHK, IET Hong Kong Date: 8 April 2015 (Wed) Time: 11am – 3:30pm Venue: Meeting Room N101B, Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre Enquiry: 2240-4357 Email: joseph.ko@hktdc.org Website: http://www.hktdc.com/fair/hklightingfairse-en/s/601-General_Information/HKTDC-Hong-Kong-International-Lighting-Fair-Spring-Edition/EventSchedule.html The Asian Lighting Forum 2015 , a yearly event which gathers renowned experts such as Philips Electronics HK , Intertek , Hong Kong Airport Authority and Hong Kong Housing Authority to share with us the Global Market trends on lighting as well as Commercial/Technical applications . The forum shall be held on Wednesday, 8 th April during the Hong Kong International Lighting Fair…
The Women's Engineering Society (WES) is involved in the 100 Years of Women in Transport initiative, and as part of this they are involved in organising a speed mentoring evening, and wondered whether any of our members would be willing to take part in this event (as mentors). The event will be in London sometime in the next few months, so if you would like to be involved, then please contact Jasmine Kerry at JasmineKerry@tfl.gov.uk to let her know, and she will take it from there. It will be an evening event, and mentors need not be from the transport industry. Thank you, Jo
With a General Election looming this Question Time style debate invites a panel of representatives from the main political parties to discuss the key issues affecting engineering and construction in the East of England. Panel: Chloe Smith – Conservative Jessica Asato – Labour Adrian Holmes – Green Party Glen Tingle - UKIP More details will be posted here as they are confirmed. Please indicate if you will attend by booking via the 'Book Online' button at the bottom of this page. If you have not used MyICE before, or you are not an ICE member, you will need to register but it's quick and straightforward to do. You do not need to be a member to book or register. Date 8 APRIL 2015 Time 18:00 - 20:00 Event Type Debate Best Western Brook Hotel 2 Barnard Road Bowthorpe Norwich NR5 9JB
The Railway Network recently organised a visit to Chiltern Railways depot at Aylesbury. A full review of the visit courtesy of Clive Kessell, of the Railway Network volunteers can be found here . Attached are some images taken during the visit courtesy of Clive. The Network would like to extend their thanks to Richard Flint, the Fleet Technical Manager, for giving up his time to explain the depot operation and for conducting the technical visit so enthusiastically.
The IET Mersey & Western Cheshire Network are looking for Young Professionals (YPs) to join their Young Professionals Section committee to arrange talks, technical visits and social events aimed at young professionals. Benefits of Volunteering: Make new contacts at all levels of seniority Improve your social and relationship skills Gain essential career experience i.e. leadership, publicity (including social media), event organisation, budget/finance management In order to have a thriving YP section, we welcome all students from relevant academic institutions and YP's working or training in industry. Naturally, full support is given to the YPS Committee, and of course all reasonable expenses are covered. If you are interested, or have any questions, please email Deborah-Claire McKenzie , the…