REMARKS AT OPENING SESSION
ICEE-2002
Manchester, England, August 19,
2002
by
Dr. Win Aung, Secretary-General,
iNEER/ICEE-ISC
Good morning! It’s great to have so many of you here this
morning. On behalf of the iNEER Board,
the ICEE-ISC and myself, I extend a special welcome to all of you. By being here, you are on a noble journey to
elevate the quality of engineering education and the education experience for
the next generation of engineers, by sharing experience and learning from your
colleagues from around the world. I
thank you for being here. Thank you
also for your support for iNEER and for ICEE.
I also thank you for
sending me your e-mails last year right after the September 11 attacks on the
World Trade Center. Some of these
e-mails have been posted on the iNEER website.
It was a tragedy that affected many people worldwide, and your words of
encouragement were greatly appreciated.
Many of you said to me at the time: We need to work together now more
than ever. I agree, and I believe that
those words ring true to many of the people of iNEER who read your messages.
In his inaugural
address in 1961, President John F. Kennedy said: “United there is little we
cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can
do.” In this spirit, I am doubly glad
to see you here in these unusual times.
The American writer John Steinbeck once said during the height of the
Cold War: “Humanity has been passing through a gray and desolate time of
confusion.” It looks to me like this
quote is appropriate for our time as well.
If the world seems
to generate a crisis a day, let me remind you about a Chinese saying, which my
good friend, Professor Chang-Lin Tien of the University of California at
Berkeley, likes to quote. The saying
goes that, crisis and opportunity always go hand in hand.
That’s a good way
for us to face the challenges today. We
cannot afford to hesitate in the face of crisis and confusion, whether
political or economic. We must seize
the moment offered by the vast opportunities opening in front of us in the
global education enterprise. Today,
there are opportunities offered to the world community through political
imperatives such as Europe’s Bologna Declaration. Opportunities are also abound through advances in scientific and
engineering disciplines such as bioengineering, nanotechnology and information
technology. There are also increasing
funding opportunities for international cooperation announced by countries like
the United States. Finally, more and
more nations and regions are also instituting sweeping education reform, the
latest nation being Morrocco. As more
and more nations become more competitive in science and technology because of
increased funding, there are more opportunities for international cooperation.
As some of the most
intelligent members of this family of nations, we have an obligation to address
many of the problems facing us in our profession. The immediate need is to define the next steps for what we do for
the betterment of our students and the faculty. The time is past to debate whether we should cooperate. The fact
that we are here means we have put that question behind us. We must take concrete steps forward to
circumvent the problems posed by differences in language, cultures and status
of economic development, or by geographic separations. We must also find ways to share education
materials.
There are those who
are worried about copyright; copyright laws must be respected, but that does
not mean we cannot share information.
One of the questions that confront many of us is: Should we follow the
example of MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and make courses
available freely on the Web?
Beyond the respect
for copyright, the idea in sharing is doing it in such as way as not to inhibit
creativity and innovations on the part of any individual.
I recently heard
someone say that, “knowledge is a collective social product and so it is
desirable to make it a social property.”
Please think about this in your deliberations during the next few days.
Another issue, and a
corollary of the last one, is: How can we help make it more of an even playing field
in terms of students receiving a high quality engineering education in both
industrialized and developing countries?
There is also a need
to expand the networking outreach of the iNEER community to get the message out
to more regions of the world concerning our work.
It is also our
collective duty to get more of our colleagues, and the top administrators of
universities to be more engaged in international activities. Not only must we get the leadership in
academic institutions to support faculty involvement in international
cooperation, but also to get them to personally attend conferences such as the
ICEEs. The dedication of faculty and
students is necessary in international collaboration, but the commitment of the
top administrators is also essential.
Many of these issues
are beginning to be tackled at ICEE conferences, this one included, and I
congratulate you for your broad vision and outlook.
With 484 abstracts submitted
to this conference from 47 countries, interest in international networking and
collaboration remains high. Following
peer review and also because of limitation of conference facilities, about 380
papers were accepted and invited. Following
the usual 20%-25% attrition, we have here about 300 final papers. 325 attendees registered for this
gathering. Including accompanying
persons and invited guests, there are about 400 of us at ICEE-2002. This is not the biggest crowd as ICEE goes, and
we are really not so much aiming at large attendance as at making sure we get
the people who are dedicated to developing international connections. As you know, large crowds can actually
inhibit intimate dialog.
We live in a very
challenging time, and this gathering is already much biggest than we dared to
hope for right after September 11. Yet,
small as we are, we can be a potent force in forging a true partnership of
nations for engineering education.
There is much that
can be done, and much that we can do together.
Engineering education is the driver of technological innovations through
the generation of new knowledge and the production of new generations of
engineers. Successful technologies must
feed successfully into the global marketplace; therefore, to be done well, the
education of engineers must be an international enterprise, and requires an
international perspective that you all can provide by working together.
Together, we
represent 34 countries. Many of us are
sacrificing our vacation time. Instead
of relaxing at some beach or holiday resort, we have chosen to meet here to
talk about how we can work together to improve our engineering education
system. We have traveled to Manchester
at the height of the tourist season, paying a premium for airfares, not to
mention conference fees that are by no means the cheapest as engineering
education conferences go.
As our hosts John
Garside, Peter Hicks and their colleagues here in Manchester will tell you, the
city has just played host to the Commonwealth Games. Over a period of 10 days, from July 26 – August 4, over 1 million
athletes and spectators came to be a part of sports competitions ranging from
swimming to track and field. People came from around the world. Over 1 billion television viewers saw the
games from all corners of the world.
Of course, our
number at ICEE-2002 is significantly lower.
Instead of a million people attending over 10 days, we are only in the
hundreds, and instead of a billion people watching worldwide, there may be only
a few thousand educators around the world who take note of what we are doing
here.
Yet, if we do it
right, what seems like a torch that is lit here can eventually light up the
whole world.
The French writer
Alexander Dumas, Jr. once said: “I am one of those who believe that all is in
little. The child is small, and he includes the man; the brain is narrow, and
it harbors thought; the eye is but a point, and it covers miles.”
Therefore, dear
members of the family of iNEER, be bold in your thinking and in your work. Share your experience with each other. Greet old friends and make new ones. Sample some of the exquisite local
cuisines. Soak in aspects of the local
culture and heritage. Above all, have
some fun while you are here!
Thank you!