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  • Volunteering with children: STEM education and building the next generation of engineers

    At Fairfield Control Systems, our extensive work in the engineering sector places us in an excellent position to help encourage the engineers of the future. We do this by volunteering in STEM education with the IET. In our work, we specialise in designing, installing, commissioning, and servicing industrial control solutions and industry 4.0 technologies. This covers instrumentation, control and automation systems. At Fairfield Control Systems & working with our sister company, Fairfield Engineering Solutions we have recently upgraded, maintained and continue to provide support to the famous Falkirk Wheel, the only boat lift of its kind working in the world. The work we do as volunteers in STEM education is hands-on, which places us in classrooms or community settings and allows us to create…

  • Did you know IET Education has a wealth of teaching and learning resources suitable for both Primary and Secondary aged children?

    In today’s rapidly evolving educational landscape, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) offers a treasure trove of learning resources designed to inspire and educate the next generation of engineers and technologists. These resources are not only comprehensive and engaging but also aligned with the curriculum, making them invaluable tools for both teachers and parents. A Wealth of Resources at Your Fingertips IET Education provides a wide array of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) resources suitable for various age groups. These resources include: Primary Teaching Resources: Tailored for students aged 4 to 11, these resources cover fundamental concepts in science, maths, and engineering. They include interactive activities, lesson plans, and classroom…

  • A Guide to Inspiring Young Minds: How to Give an Engaging STEM Talk to School Children

    Alexandra Knight, Founder and CEO of STEMAZING gives us her top tips on how to give an engaging STEM talk to children... In today's rapidly evolving world, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is more critical than ever. Meeting STEM professionals in a school setting helps raise awareness and aspirations of STEM careers for young people and builds the confidence of teachers with these subjects too. This is a vital part of the solution to plug the STEM skills gap and drive greater diversity in our future STEM workforce. There is so much to be done, and we need to scale up our collective efforts to make real impact. I’m super passionate about encouraging more STEM professionals to engage young people in schools to open children’s minds to exciting career paths…

  • Because it’s not just students who benefit from education outreach

    Bosch became a UK FIRST® LEGO® League National Partner as a way to celebrate the company’s 125th anniversary, but it’s stayed for the benefits – to both the business and the engineering community… Bosch was built on strong philanthropic principles and has always been particularly passionate about promoting STEM to the next generation, it’s taken a gold-standard approach to STEM engagement through IET programmes and an ongoing education partnership with the institution. Last year, the company hit an auspicious milestone – 125 years of UK operation. To celebrate this rare achievement, it chose to become a FIRST® LEGO® League National Partner. This entailed working with the IET to host a number of FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge Tournaments for 9 to 16-year-olds and…

  • Meet the winners of the IET Healthcare Technologies Student and Early Career Awards 2024

    The Healthcare Technologies Network is delighted to announce the winners of the IET Healthcare Technologies Student and Early Career Awards 2024. The IET Healthcare Technologies Network is keen to encourage and support the work and research of academics and newly qualified professionals in healthcare, medical and biomedical engineering arenas. Our award winners for the J.A Lodge award will be present in person and the William James will be supplying a recording of their work at our Annual Healthcare Lecture on Thursday 28 th November at IET London: Savoy Place. Our Keynote for the evening is Professor Mandic, Professor of Machine Intelligence - Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering - Faculty of Engineering ,Imperial College London speaking on ‘Hearables: Real World Applications…

  • Exploring Intelligent Healthcare with Quantum Computing

    Congratulations to Book Editors, Dr.Abhishek Pandey Kumar, Dr. Ashutosh Kumar Dubey, Vincenzo Piuri and Joel Rodrigues and to all of the chapter contributors on the publication of this new IET book: Exploring Intelligent Healthcare with Quantum Computing About the Book Classical computers encode information in binary bits that can either be 0s or 1s. In a quantum computer, the basic unit of memory is a quantum bit or qubit. These qubits play a similar role in terms of storing information, but use physical systems, such as the spin of an electron or the orientation of a photon, to do so. In situations where there are a large number of possible feature combinations, quantum computers can consider them simultaneously, speeding up the data processing time. In healthcare, where there are often…

  • How a father and son kept the Industrial Revolution on the rails

    October 8, 1829 - Stephenson's The Rocket wins The Rainhill Trials Your business is booming, demand for your product is growing by the day. You produce it with the latest technology, but technological wonders end when it leaves the factory gate. The product must travel by horseback, in horse-drawn wagons or canal boats pulled by horses. What to do? You ask the best brains in the country to produce the best locomotives in the country and test them at the Rainhill Trials - where one machine is far ahead of anything else – the 'Rocket.' The 'Rocket', photographed on display at The Science Museum (now displayed at Locomotion in Shildon, County Durham) Source: Wikimedia Commons The Problem By the 1820s, the Industrial Revolution drew people in ever greater numbers from the countryside…

  • The IET Media Technical Network goes to IBC 2024 in Amsterdam

    The IET Media Technical Network gets extremely active every Autumn since we relocated our traditional John Logie Baird lecture to IBC that takes place in Amsterdam every September. This year we put together three sessions that covered three distinct areas of interest to the Media technology industry, each of which has been recorded for those who were not able to attend, covering Strategies for TV and Video Platforms, Content Cyber Security and AI/ML in Media Revisited. Here I am introducing the three sessions. www.ibc.org/.../11804.article The three sessions are mostly available for on demand viewing, so please do have a watch. Strategies for TV and Video Platforms www.ibc.org/.../11728.article Content Cyber Security - Under siege, defending against cyber threads…

  • What my IBC takeaways tells us about the state of media technology today

    Working in the TV and Video business, collectively referred to as Media (although technically that includes print and web as well) is a place that I entered back in 1997 after a good number of years doing research in computerised control of rock crushing equipment (which included AI/ML techniques of the day - long story, short version was that compute power and techniques were not quite what they needed to be), a stint entering the Corporate and Secure networking arena (it used to be a lot more than the Internet), and then answering one of those 'advert' things you found in something called a 'weekly industry newspaper' (the now defunct Network Week if you wanted to know). I came quite quickly to attending IBC, what used to be referred to as the International Broadcasting Conference, in 1998…

  • Broadcasting in a tough environment

    As a former Head of Engineering at Sri Lanka’s national broadcaster TV Rupavahini, Amal Punchihewa has experience in challenging environments... Brief intro My name is Amal Punchihewa (pronounced 'poonch-i-have'), and I'm currently an advisor and consultant to the Asia Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development. It is an intergovernmental organisation formed in 1977 for the Asia Pacific region by the United Nations. Between 1997 and 2001, I was the Head of Engineering at Sri Lanka’s national broadcaster, TV Rupavahini. Ambition I decided I wanted to work at national TV when I graduated from my degree. Unfortunately, when I completed my bachelor's and graduated in 1985, was no vacancy, I had to wait three years. But I patiently waited and began working for an IT company. As IT…

  • The promise of Generative AI for Media and Entertainment

    Just about a year back, the IET’s President’s address was delivered by Dr. Gopichand Katragadda on the topic “The key to delivering a resilient future”. Needless to say, AI and the recent advancements in generative AI were a recurring theme during the engaging session. At this event, I had the privilege of being a guest speaker and I chose to talk about the AI driven transformation of the Media and Entertainment sector. Predictably, as a passionate AI technologist, I painted a particularly optimistic picture of the potential of generative AI for the media industry. A year since then, with my recent visit to IBC, the premier broadcasting, media and technology show, I’ve been mulling over whether generative AI has delivered on its promise. Bear with me, while I walk through my musings! There…

  • Understanding the Electromagnetic Spectrum for Freeview Television and Telecommunications 5G Mobile

    Originally back in the 1960’s the Ultra High Frequency electromagnetic spectrum for Analogue Television transmitters was 470 to 863 MHz. Since then Digital Terrestrial Television “Freeview”, known as DVB-T, has taken over which is now compressed into 470 to 699 MHz. The remaining 700 to 863 MHz is progressively filling up with Telecommunications 5G receiver-transmitter masts for newer 5G mobile telephones and other fast data services. Near me in Leamington Spa in Warwickshire in England in UK there are new 5G masts built and one existing mast has had its antenna arrays replaced. But there may be a problem that will slowly creep up on us still using Digital Television equipment. I have a Freeview set top box Manhattan T1 and a Freeview recorder Panasonic DMR-BW880. When scanning for channels…

  • The best of IET and IBC 2024

    We’re delighted to announce the publication of The best of IET and IBC 2024 from this year's International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam. After a brief hiatus we’re thrilled to once again showcase the groundbreaking research presented at IBC. These papers have been selected by IBC’s Technical Papers Committee for being novel, but also topical, analytical, well-written and which have the potential to make a significant impact upon the media industry. 327 papers were submitted this year, and after a rigorous selection process this publication features the ten papers deemed by the judges to be the best. We’d like to extend a huge congratulations to all authors included in this year’s publication, particularly Joshua Maraval, Nicolas Ramin and Lu Zhang who won IBC’s Best Technical…

  • Musical pamphlets in the Silvanus P. Thompson collection

    Ella Mulliri is our guest blogger this month. She worked with us in the IET Library and Archives over the summer and brings her knowledge of composition and music generally to looking at the pamphlet collection of Silvanus P. Thompson. Ella is a Londoner-adopted Italian with a background in music and the arts. She studied harp, singing and music reading for most of her childhood and later picked up the guitar and keyboard. Her experience at The LSE Women’s Library ignited her love for academic libraries and archives, which has since been a constant in her professional life. “Music resonates in so many parts of the brain that we can’t conceive of it being an isolated thing. It’s whom you were with, how old you were, and what was happening that day.” -David Byrne Both scientists and musicians…

  • From Engineering to Executive: An Engineer’s Journey to the C-Suite

    We meet Philip Clayson BEng(Hons) MBA CEng FIET in the next of our 'My Engineering Career' blog series. Phil tells us about his career in the telecoms and broadcasting industry, the importance of personal networking and some of the large organisations and projects he's worked on... Who I am, where I have been I am Philip Clayson, a Chief Information and Technology Officer, (CIO & CTO) with a career across several interesting sectors,…TV, telecoms, emergency services and energy, with leading companies including News Corporation, Oracle, BT, TalkTalk, SSE and Sky What caught my attention As a child, I used to enjoy experimenting with electronic circuits, writing software, and authoring small games, I was inspired by creating and building with technology. I chose my GCSEs and A levels…

  • Engineering our water future

    Can you help our Education partner? Fun Kids are looking for young engineers to help with their Audio and Animated Programmes activity. Read more about Fun Kids and their Programmes in the post below and get in touch with them directly if you’d like to help. Fun Kids is the UK’s multi-media brand that puts children in the driving seat, helping them think, create and play. An award winning children's radio station and a leading children’s podcast and animations producer, Fun Kids engages with over 2m children and parents each month across the UK through our radio stations, podcast network, YouTube channels and online at www.funkidslive.com . Fun Kids has been awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious grant to help children learn about the challenges the world faces with clean water…

    Former Staff Member
    Former Staff Member

  • From AI to Zoom: The Alphabet of MediaTech

    Earlier this year I presented to the IET NorCal Technical network in San Francisco a somewhat light hearted presentation on various current aspects of Media Technology. Have a watch and learn a little something about Adaptive Bit Rate, DRM, and a whole soup of other things for that matter. You will find a little something surprising here... about Adaptive Bit Rate, Broadcast, Codecs, DRM, Encoding of Video, Frame Rate, Gamma, HDR, Interlace, John Logie Baird, KHz, LED, ML, NextGenTV, OLED, Prosumer, QLED, Regulations, Sustainability, TV Everywhere, UHD, Video, WCG, XYZ, YUV, and Zoom If you work or are engaged in Engineering in and around the Bay Area/Northern Californa, do look up the IET NorCal local network https://engx.theiet.org/local-networks/z344 If you are more engaged in the…

  • Howe the world profoundly changed and became better dressed

    On this day in (engineering) history… September 10, 1846 - Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine. Boston, Massachusetts, 1839. At the famous and highly regarded machine shop belonging to Ari Davis, a young man approaches Davis for advice or encouragement on a project of his, a knitting machine. Davis pointed out that the inventor was wasting his time, that he should be working on a sewing machine instead because there was money in it. The inventor was not convinced, but a witness to that discussion had an idea that was crystalised when he stopped working because of a painful disability. Elizabeth, his wife, took on sewing work to bring in a little money. Watching her work, Elias Howe decided he could make Elizabeth’s job easier by inventing and patenting the sewing machine…

  • Members in Berkshire celebrated for their achievements!

    Hello, I’m Julie Hudson and I am a Local Network Manager for the IET. My role is to guide and support a portfolio of local networks in the UK. Earlier this year I was very pleased to help the Berkshire network organise a professional recognition event. The purpose of this event was to celebrate the achievements of members in Berkshire who had achieved professional registration or fellowship with the IET. What is professional registration and fellowship? Professional registration can not only enhance your career, it also demonstrates that you have reached an internationally recognised standard of competence. There are four categories of Professional Registration; Chartered Engineer, Incorporated Engineer, Engineering Technician and ICT Technician and each category follows a variation…

  • Empowering Young Minds Through Technology: The Mission of Technology Books for Children

    In a world increasingly driven by technology, it's crucial to provide children with the tools they need to navigate and understand the digital landscape. The charity Technology Books for Children , founded by Beverly Clarke MBE, is dedicated to this mission. By encouraging reading for pleasure on tech topics, the charity aims to encourage enjoyment of technology and play a part in fostering the next generation of digital citizens. The Inspiration Behind the Charity The idea for Technology Books for Children was born from Beverly’s observations while as a teacher, leading computing education nationally and while writing her tech-themed children’s book series, The Digital Adventures of Ava and Chip . She noticed that many children saw technology as distant and complex, something reserved…

  • Check out this video recap of the IET’s Young Professional Committee recent meeting in Hong Kong!

    Back in May, the IET’s Young Professionals Committee met for their second in person meeting of this current session. The group gathered at the IET’s Hong Kong office, where two days’ worth of meetings took place. They also had the opportunity to visit the facilities for both the Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (IVE) where they got to see the newly opened Electric Cars workshop and a glimpse of the university’s solar car project, Sophie 6. As well as the Sha Tin Water Treatment Works which supplies 30% of Hong Kong’s clean water. To cap off the trip, a sharing session with the Hong Kong Young Members Section was held, where both groups were able to network and share their insights. Watch the video to see more about their trip: engx.theiet.org/.../7367.2024_2D00_06_2D00_20-Hong…

  • Cyber security in critical industries: challenges, solutions, and the road ahead

    In an era of rapid digital transformation, cyber security has emerged as a paramount concern, particularly for critical industries such as energy, healthcare, and transportation. As we approach the IET’s Cyber Security for Critical Industries 2024 conference, it is essential to delve into the latest cyber security challenges and explore how building resilient and responsive systems can help mitigate these risks. The evolving cyber security landscape The cyber security landscape is in a constant state of flux, with new threats emerging and existing ones becoming more sophisticated. Ransomware attacks, third-party vulnerabilities, mobile malware, and zero-day vulnerabilities in supply chains are among the significant challenges companies face today. Moreover, the relentless growth in cloud…

  • The dawn of the jet age - The day that began with a flight into the future

    On this day in (engineering) history… August 27, 1939 - First flight of the Heinkel He. 178 An odd sight would have greeted anyone seeing today’s routine test flight at the Heinkel aircraft company’s Marienehe airfield in Rostock, Germany. The aircraft made a noise resembling a whistling howl. It had a strange opening at its nose and no visible means of propulsion. What the gathered company designers and engineers were studying closely, was the first flight of a turbojet-powered aircraft – the jet age has just arrived. Take off Replica of Heinkel He. 178 in the arrival hall of Rostock-Laage airport. Source: Wikimedia Commons The pilot was Erich Warsitz , who had already test-flown an experimental rocket-powered plane, the Heinkel He. 176 two months earlier. He wrote: “…As the aircraft…

  • Electric Vehicles and the Evolution of Automotive Manufacturing Processes

    Electric Vehicles and the Evolution of Automotive Manufacturing Processes The automotive industry is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by the rapid advancement and adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). This shift not only signifies a move toward sustainable transportation but also necessitates significant changes in manufacturing processes. As the world pivots to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change, the rise of EVs has catalysed an evolution in how vehicles are designed, produced, and assembled. This article explores the implications of this evolution, focusing on the technological, economic, and environmental aspects of automotive manufacturing in the era of electric vehicles. Technological Innovations in EV Manufacturing Electric vehicles are fundamentally different…

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