Geneva, September 2011: a turning point in the way that the engineering community contributes to and communicates with society today. The Word Engineer’s Convention (WEC 2011) will be held in Geneva from 3-5 September under the slogan “Engineers power the world”.
For three days, Geneva will serve as an open window on to the rest of the world, an open window from which the voice of the engineering community sheds light and shows the path to follow in making the transition to a sustainable energy future.
Doha, Copenhagen, Kyoto and Davos Summits left people disappointed.
WEC 2011 in Geneva will have the value of basing its conclusions and recommendations on the best engineering and technological advice – and don’t forget that the engineering profession is the profession par excellence for the conversion of knowledge into social progress.
The energy issue is a pressing one. In light of a growing demography, and growing environmental and energy risks, the World Federation of Engineering Organization decided in 2008 to focus its efforts on how to face the global energy challenge, on how to shift to a new model of energy production, consumption and distribution.
Kuwait (2009), Argentina (2010) and Switzerland (2011) will bring together the thoughts of engineers worldwide, not only in different disciplines but also with different cultural and social backgrounds.
Traders, business representatives, government delegates and media will be called upon, as well.
Convinced that the energy issue is a global issue, the engineering community wants to address it as a complex and systemic issue that needs to be tackled through different optics and approaches. WEC 2011 will cover broad aspects that are instrumental in formulating a right energy policy and then implementing it: from disparities in demography, rural demand areas, urban planning, cost-efficiency, production technologies, security grids, education, methodologies, advance distribution networks, engineering capacity building. All those aspects will link to engineering innovation applications able to complement the right local solutions to resolve concrete needs.
WEC 2011 will be an independent platform of engineering knowledge-sharing, fully conscious of the social consequences of their technological choices. Engineers are convinced that the answers to the challenges that society faces today can come only from those who have a thorough and ethical understanding of the issues. WEC 2011 is the fourth event of a world engineers’ convention that the body representing the engineering profession has carried out: Hannover (2000), Shanghai (2004) and Brasilia (2008) were successful meeting points for international dialogue among engineers.
This time, the upheaval in values due to the extent and severity of the financial, economic and social crisis that affects every country in the world and the inability of governments and institutions to guide and regulate the exchange of goods and services, for the common good, obliges the engineering community to go further and to make stronger efforts to transcended the technical sphere and to connect with society at large.
Without any doubt the Geneva 2011 World Engineering Convention will be able to do it.
I encourage you to participate.
Thank you very much indeed.
Maria J. Prieto Laffargue, President of the WFEO
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