engineers are problem solvers and they
don’t just solve any old problems
engineers have solved some of the
greatest and most challenging problems
that we’ve ever faced engineers have
played a fundamental role in human
development now I realize that’s quite a
bold statement but I’m hoping that I can
share some stories with you that bring
that to life because I think that’s
amazing that’s inspiring that’s the kind
of thing that would make me consider
becoming an engineer and it did so I’d
like to start by taking us back taking
us a long long way back several thousand
years in fact to when modern humans were
first stepping out into the world
what was that world life like what was
life like well I think it’s fair to say
that life was pretty tough for our
ancient ancestors every day was a battle
to find enough food and water to survive
every day there was the challenge of
finding shelter to keep ourselves safe
from the elements and protect ourselves
from predators the world that our
ancient ancestors inhabited was vastly
different to the world that we inhabit
today and much of that difference is in
large part due to our ability to
engineer our ability to look at the
world around us identify the challenges
that we are facing think up ways to
address those challenges and put that
into action in essence our ability to
engineer is our ability to turn our
dreams into reality and that has been
fundamental to our success and to our
development for example we can live in
large numbers that’s been really
important to our success as human beings
for a number of different reasons
including protection in numbers sharing
of resources sharing of ideas which has
enabled innovation but one of the
challenges of living in large such large
numbers is that we also end up living in
close proximity
to a lot of our own waste and one of the
issues of living with in close proximity
to a lot of our own waste is that we
become at risk of contracting diseases
and those diseases such as cholera such
as sickness like diarrhea can have a
huge impact on our lives and in the
worst cases cause fatality so this is
something that our ancient civilizations
have been addressing since the beginning
of time but once the red really like to
share with you that I find most
interesting is that of Joseph Basile
Jets Joseph’s battle Jets was a British
civil engineer who designed and
delivered the London sewage system that
we’re still using today and here’s a
lovely picture of him the nice fine
young chef there in the top hats so in
19th century London so we’re talking
about the 1800s here three million
people were living in London those three
million people were using the River
Thames for their drinking water and to
clean themselves in they were also using
the River Thames to get rid of their
waste and I’m talking about sewage waste
too because the River Thames would carry
the waste away as out of harm’s way so
unfortunately what that meant is that a
large proportion of people were drinking
contaminated water this meant there was
a high incidence of cholera of diarrhea
and at its peak in the mid-1800s around
14,000 people died from those diseases
now you and I probably think that that’s
that’s not a great way to live that’s
not acceptable there should be something
that can be done about that and
something that happened in the mid 1800s
was that members of Parliament’s so if
you don’t know the houses of parliament
sits on the River Thames were so
offended by the stench coming from the
river that they commissioned Joseph’s
passive Jets
the engineer to do something about it
and this is what he did this is a
picture of some of the of a
cross-section of some of the sewage
systems that he then put in place to
deal with the waste of three million
people taking it from where it was being
produced and transporting it away from
that population so it could be dealt
with and deport and deposited
effectively what’s really inspiring
about this story is that Basile jet
didn’t just design that system for the
three million people living in London at
that time this system is what we’re
still using today over a hundred and
sixty years later when there are eight
million people living in London he had
the foresight to think that this
engineering infrastructure this really
big piece of big piece of kit if you
like was going to have to last a long
time I’m not sure if he knew how long
but I think that’s phenomenal that he
has provided at least a hundred and
sixty years of people in London living
without the fear of contracting diseases
such as cholera and diarrhea and it’s
only now in 2018 with the London Thames
Tideway project that we’re upgrading the
system we’re not even replacing it we’re
just upgrading it
I think that’s phenomenal I think that’s
an amazing contribution that an engineer
has made towards our human developments
because what he designed inspired sewage
systems all around the world so it’s not
just the millions of people in London’s
lives that he’s changed he’s had a
knock-on impact on people’s lives around
the world engineers have also
contributed towards advances in medical
science some of you may be familiar of
the work of Alexander Fleming who
discovered penicillin yeah
one of the most amazing medicines of the
20th century antibiotics
which have saved thousands of lives from
infection and he found that in 1926 now
by the time of the second world war in
their ninth in the 1940s all that we’d
managed to achieve was enough penicillin
to treat ten people so when you’ve got
thousands of people suffering on
suffering due to the ravages of war
limbs cut off etc when something like
antibiotics would make a huge difference
to them protect and prevent them from
getting infection this wonderful drug
that we had available to us wasn’t
accessible and this is a really great
story particularly for me because it was
a female engineer they
lady margaret Hutchinson an American
female chemical engineer who worked out
the manufacturing process because
penicillin was typically quite hard to
manufacture a manufacturing process that
could really scale up the production of
penicillin and within one year within
one year she was producing enough pennis
400 million units of penicillin so
that’s a phenomenal achievement that was
something that an engineer did yes it
was science that discovered penicillin
but it was engineering that made it
accessible to pretty much everybody
around the world so again another
amazing contribution that engineers have
made towards human development and
there’s other ways that I like to talk
about how engineering has made a
difference that maybe is slightly less
obvious something about the place in
which we live the environments the urban
environments that we increasingly find
ourselves engineers have played a key
role in helping us fight in helping us
live in places that we are happy with in
places that we feel safe in in places
where we can connect with each other and
opportunities that are available to us
and a really great example of this is
quite an unusual one that comes from
South America so this is medellin in
colombia this is an image of one of the
favelas on the hillsides in medellin and
i don’t know if you can see but right in
the middle of this picture here is an
escalator now that’s quite an unusual
thing right to see in the out in the in
the outside environment let alone in a
favela an informal settlement in the
city in a city in colombia but this
escalator chose a really wonderful story
about the change in this place so made
iene in the early 1990s had a claim to
fame that I’m sure most cities wouldn’t
want it was the murder capital of the
world it was not a nice place to live or
mostly to do with so this was mostly to
do with their gang violence to do to do
with the drugs trade and unfortunately
what that meant is that people living in
the favelas felt conformed
to their own homes they weren’t able to
they felt they felt they weren’t able to
go and meet their friends go and go and
access the markets and education
opportunities in this in the center of
the city because the murder the the
crime was so rife that it was happening
in broad daylight and those people were
scared they were scared to inform the
police partly because the law services
couldn’t even reach the favela so you
can see that it’s quite a dense urban
environment there it’s on a hillside so
and so this just meant that the problem
wasn’t going away and so the mayor of of
Medellin came up with an idea he said
actually what I’d like to do is try to
create a sense of connection let’s try
to get back ownership of our city and so
he came up with this slightly crazy idea
I think to install it an escalator for
one it would mean that people could get
around more easily so that they could
access the center of medina for the
educational purposes that that brought
up access to markets they could buy
goods and services and also better job
opportunities but what it also meant is
that in order to put the escalator in
place the community had to come together
because as I said earlier this is a
dense urban environment they had to
knock down some buildings to put it in
place and so the community had to come
together to decide the route and what
this did was it galvanized that sense of
community meant people started talking
to one another it meant people started
to realize that they could take back
ownership of the place in which they
live in the place in which they lived
and so not only is it just a piece of
infrastructure that meant that people
could move around more easily including
the police for instance it actually
represents the community coming together
taking a decision together and taking
back ownership of their place and what
that meant as a knock-on impact is that
Medellin is actually now on the on the
tourist trail it’s a popular place to go
and visit it’s no longer the murder
capital of the world they got rid of
that they reduced it
within a few years so I think that’s
another interesting and slightly
different example of how engineering has
played a key role in making a difference
to a place and for me that’s what’s
inspiring the fact that engineering can
make such a positive difference but and
that’s what inspired me to become an
engineer but it very nearly didn’t
happen I very nearly didn’t become an
engineer it was only a chance encounter
with a poster at my sixth film college
because for the first 17 years of my
life I didn’t even you know I’d never
come across the word engineer I’d never
come across this concept of engineering
it was a chance encounter with a poster
at my sixth film college and then
actually quite a lot of effort on my
part that I was able to discover what
engineering was about and even then it
was a chance encounter with a wind
turbine of all things that really
appeals to my environmental interests
that really inspired me to become an
engineer and that’s a problem not
because I think I’m some sort of super
engineer and if I hadn’t become one then
you know the world would be far worse
off no I’d like to think I’m not so
arrogant about myself but it’s a problem
because it’s a common story there are
large numbers of people who don’t know
what engineering is they don’t know what
engineering can achieve and we have a
real issue with who isn’t becoming an
engineer and what motivations and
interests ants are being represented in
engineering as a result diversity and
engineering is an issue in the UK but
also around the world for example in the
UK we have some of the worst gender
diversity of statistics in Europe with
only 10% of the engineering workforce
being female compared to 30% in some
European countries and I know that
gender diversity isn’t isn’t the end of
a story when we’re talking about
diversity diversity in engineering but
the statistics illustrates a point we
lack diversity and the effect of that is
that the decisions and the values behind
those decisions that are being made by
engineers and I hope I’ve showed you
that engineers are making decisions
about things that really affect
our lives the values behind those
decisions being made by engineers aren’t
completely representative of the people
that will live there and time is of the
essence we’re at a point in our history
that some are calling as the beginning
of the Anthropocene an area where human
activity is happening at such a scale
that we are a significant deciding
factor in the future of our planet we
are changing the climate we are changing
landscapes and natural ecosystems and
we’re either chained even changing
ourselves whether that’s the increased
influence of Technology in our
day-to-day lives or whether that’s the
engineered urban environments that we
increasingly find ourselves in so a few
years ago I think it was 2012 we tipped
the balance to being more urban than
rural so it’s engineers and the
environments that you know we’re
designing as engineers that will in the
future decide how we as human beings
behave and interact with one another so
wouldn’t it be really important that’s
actually the people that are making
those decisions represents us as a
society this is what this is why
diversity in engineering is so important
not just for a justice issue but because
it’s about the world that we’re going to
live in
we are engineering our planet and I
think it’s fair to say that we are
engineering our future so what what are
we going to do about that well I think
one thing that we really need to do is
it’s this whole inspiration piece to
inspire a diverse cohort of people to
become engineers we really have to
change the narrative of what engineering
is about because as I said at the
beginning for me and for many people
like me it was quite hard or it was
quite hard to really discover what
engineering was about and to see how it
appealed to my interests I didn’t
identify with engineering so I think we
have a real opportunity here with the
sustainable development goals so the
sustainable development goals for those
of you that don’t know about them are
said
single set by the international
community that say we recognize that
this Anthropocene is happening that we
are how we are changing the face of our
planet we want to come together and say
actually let’s just not let that happen
as it you know in some sort of dystopian
machine world type type pathway let’s
take control of that path let’s say that
actually we refuse to believe that we
can’t live on this planet and feed
ourselves whilst not also in allowing
the 8.7 million other species that live
here to share this planet equitably with
us let’s not say that let’s not say that
we that our only hope is looking for
another planet let’s actually say that
we have the intelligence we have the
capability to live on this planet much
better than we already do and so I think
the sustainable development goals give
us a really great opportunity to
actually recontextualize and reframe a
narrative around engineering because a
lot of young people today myself
included young anymore really want to do
something about this you know this is
inspiring stuff this is how do we want
our future to look what do we want our
future to look like but quite often we
end up in a place of paralysis these
goals are huge how are we going to
address them you know this is me as an
individual what can I do about that and
I’d actually say that engineering is a
really tangible way of saying how we can
address those that becoming an engineer
is a really great way to take action
against them for example the example I
gave earlier of Joseph passive jet with
his with his sanitation systems
obviously that feeds into the
Sustainable Development Goal number six
are out achieving clean water and
sanitation for everyone but actually it
also has a knock-on impact on some of
the other goals such as quality
education such as good health and
well-being and for me you know it
doesn’t take too long to start drawing
those links between some of the basic
engineering that we talked about and
actually the societal impacts that that
has and I’m part of a movement of
Engineers that are talking about this
doing something about this I’m from an
organization called engineer’s Without
Borders UK we’re part of a global
movement of Engineers Without Borders
organizations that are present in around
80 to 100 different countries around the
world we’re a movement of young
engineers mostly but lots of Engineers
who are passionate about this about
saying that global responsibility a
social and environmental responsibility
should be at the heart of what
engineering is about not at the edges it
should be at the heart it should be the
whole points of what being an engineer
is about making the world a better place
for people now for people tomorrow for
people everywhere and so what we what
we’re doing is taking that narrative and
taking it out into the schools into the
youth groups and spreading that
narrative as far and wide as we can to
try to inspire more people and more
diverse people to become engineers and
make a difference and become engineers
specifically because they want to be an
engineer that makes a difference we
recognize that engineers have an impact
but I think it’s about saying I want to
be an engineer that has a positive
impact and and it’s about saying that
yes part of a narrative of what being an
engineer is it’s great you know
engineers help us get into space that’s
really inspiring that’s really exciting
but I think it’s also about saying that
stories like like this one so this is an
example of one of the projects we’ve
been working on in Kibera which is an
informal settlement in Nairobi in Kenya
East Africa so yes engineering is about
doing amazing crazy things like getting
into space but actually engineering
there’s this really humble and human
side about it as well
it’s about ensuring that there are there
are there’s infrastructure in place such
as good-quality toilets clean drinking
water good good
buildings in which we can learn and
educate that mean that means that young
people all around the world can access
the education that they need to be able
to better their prospects in life for
so my message to you this morning is
that I hope I’ve been able to share with
you that engineers really are
fundamental to making a difference and
really are fundamental to human
development we have been in the past and
we should be in the future but a really
important part of doing that is one to
ensure that weird that we’re inspiring a
diverse cohort of young people to become
engineers to ensure that we have a
representative voice of of those that
represent society but to that they
become engineers because they want to
make a difference and that they
recognize that putting global
responsibility at the heart of what
engineering is about is really really
important thank you for listening [Applause]
don’t just solve any old problems
engineers have solved some of the
greatest and most challenging problems
that we’ve ever faced engineers have
played a fundamental role in human
development now I realize that’s quite a
bold statement but I’m hoping that I can
share some stories with you that bring
that to life because I think that’s
amazing that’s inspiring that’s the kind
of thing that would make me consider
becoming an engineer and it did so I’d
like to start by taking us back taking
us a long long way back several thousand
years in fact to when modern humans were
first stepping out into the world
what was that world life like what was
life like well I think it’s fair to say
that life was pretty tough for our
ancient ancestors every day was a battle
to find enough food and water to survive
every day there was the challenge of
finding shelter to keep ourselves safe
from the elements and protect ourselves
from predators the world that our
ancient ancestors inhabited was vastly
different to the world that we inhabit
today and much of that difference is in
large part due to our ability to
engineer our ability to look at the
world around us identify the challenges
that we are facing think up ways to
address those challenges and put that
into action in essence our ability to
engineer is our ability to turn our
dreams into reality and that has been
fundamental to our success and to our
development for example we can live in
large numbers that’s been really
important to our success as human beings
for a number of different reasons
including protection in numbers sharing
of resources sharing of ideas which has
enabled innovation but one of the
challenges of living in large such large
numbers is that we also end up living in
close proximity
to a lot of our own waste and one of the
issues of living with in close proximity
to a lot of our own waste is that we
become at risk of contracting diseases
and those diseases such as cholera such
as sickness like diarrhea can have a
huge impact on our lives and in the
worst cases cause fatality so this is
something that our ancient civilizations
have been addressing since the beginning
of time but once the red really like to
share with you that I find most
interesting is that of Joseph Basile
Jets Joseph’s battle Jets was a British
civil engineer who designed and
delivered the London sewage system that
we’re still using today and here’s a
lovely picture of him the nice fine
young chef there in the top hats so in
19th century London so we’re talking
about the 1800s here three million
people were living in London those three
million people were using the River
Thames for their drinking water and to
clean themselves in they were also using
the River Thames to get rid of their
waste and I’m talking about sewage waste
too because the River Thames would carry
the waste away as out of harm’s way so
unfortunately what that meant is that a
large proportion of people were drinking
contaminated water this meant there was
a high incidence of cholera of diarrhea
and at its peak in the mid-1800s around
14,000 people died from those diseases
now you and I probably think that that’s
that’s not a great way to live that’s
not acceptable there should be something
that can be done about that and
something that happened in the mid 1800s
was that members of Parliament’s so if
you don’t know the houses of parliament
sits on the River Thames were so
offended by the stench coming from the
river that they commissioned Joseph’s
passive Jets
the engineer to do something about it
and this is what he did this is a
picture of some of the of a
cross-section of some of the sewage
systems that he then put in place to
deal with the waste of three million
people taking it from where it was being
produced and transporting it away from
that population so it could be dealt
with and deport and deposited
effectively what’s really inspiring
about this story is that Basile jet
didn’t just design that system for the
three million people living in London at
that time this system is what we’re
still using today over a hundred and
sixty years later when there are eight
million people living in London he had
the foresight to think that this
engineering infrastructure this really
big piece of big piece of kit if you
like was going to have to last a long
time I’m not sure if he knew how long
but I think that’s phenomenal that he
has provided at least a hundred and
sixty years of people in London living
without the fear of contracting diseases
such as cholera and diarrhea and it’s
only now in 2018 with the London Thames
Tideway project that we’re upgrading the
system we’re not even replacing it we’re
just upgrading it
I think that’s phenomenal I think that’s
an amazing contribution that an engineer
has made towards our human developments
because what he designed inspired sewage
systems all around the world so it’s not
just the millions of people in London’s
lives that he’s changed he’s had a
knock-on impact on people’s lives around
the world engineers have also
contributed towards advances in medical
science some of you may be familiar of
the work of Alexander Fleming who
discovered penicillin yeah
one of the most amazing medicines of the
20th century antibiotics
which have saved thousands of lives from
infection and he found that in 1926 now
by the time of the second world war in
their ninth in the 1940s all that we’d
managed to achieve was enough penicillin
to treat ten people so when you’ve got
thousands of people suffering on
suffering due to the ravages of war
limbs cut off etc when something like
antibiotics would make a huge difference
to them protect and prevent them from
getting infection this wonderful drug
that we had available to us wasn’t
accessible and this is a really great
story particularly for me because it was
a female engineer they
lady margaret Hutchinson an American
female chemical engineer who worked out
the manufacturing process because
penicillin was typically quite hard to
manufacture a manufacturing process that
could really scale up the production of
penicillin and within one year within
one year she was producing enough pennis
400 million units of penicillin so
that’s a phenomenal achievement that was
something that an engineer did yes it
was science that discovered penicillin
but it was engineering that made it
accessible to pretty much everybody
around the world so again another
amazing contribution that engineers have
made towards human development and
there’s other ways that I like to talk
about how engineering has made a
difference that maybe is slightly less
obvious something about the place in
which we live the environments the urban
environments that we increasingly find
ourselves engineers have played a key
role in helping us fight in helping us
live in places that we are happy with in
places that we feel safe in in places
where we can connect with each other and
opportunities that are available to us
and a really great example of this is
quite an unusual one that comes from
South America so this is medellin in
colombia this is an image of one of the
favelas on the hillsides in medellin and
i don’t know if you can see but right in
the middle of this picture here is an
escalator now that’s quite an unusual
thing right to see in the out in the in
the outside environment let alone in a
favela an informal settlement in the
city in a city in colombia but this
escalator chose a really wonderful story
about the change in this place so made
iene in the early 1990s had a claim to
fame that I’m sure most cities wouldn’t
want it was the murder capital of the
world it was not a nice place to live or
mostly to do with so this was mostly to
do with their gang violence to do to do
with the drugs trade and unfortunately
what that meant is that people living in
the favelas felt conformed
to their own homes they weren’t able to
they felt they felt they weren’t able to
go and meet their friends go and go and
access the markets and education
opportunities in this in the center of
the city because the murder the the
crime was so rife that it was happening
in broad daylight and those people were
scared they were scared to inform the
police partly because the law services
couldn’t even reach the favela so you
can see that it’s quite a dense urban
environment there it’s on a hillside so
and so this just meant that the problem
wasn’t going away and so the mayor of of
Medellin came up with an idea he said
actually what I’d like to do is try to
create a sense of connection let’s try
to get back ownership of our city and so
he came up with this slightly crazy idea
I think to install it an escalator for
one it would mean that people could get
around more easily so that they could
access the center of medina for the
educational purposes that that brought
up access to markets they could buy
goods and services and also better job
opportunities but what it also meant is
that in order to put the escalator in
place the community had to come together
because as I said earlier this is a
dense urban environment they had to
knock down some buildings to put it in
place and so the community had to come
together to decide the route and what
this did was it galvanized that sense of
community meant people started talking
to one another it meant people started
to realize that they could take back
ownership of the place in which they
live in the place in which they lived
and so not only is it just a piece of
infrastructure that meant that people
could move around more easily including
the police for instance it actually
represents the community coming together
taking a decision together and taking
back ownership of their place and what
that meant as a knock-on impact is that
Medellin is actually now on the on the
tourist trail it’s a popular place to go
and visit it’s no longer the murder
capital of the world they got rid of
that they reduced it
within a few years so I think that’s
another interesting and slightly
different example of how engineering has
played a key role in making a difference
to a place and for me that’s what’s
inspiring the fact that engineering can
make such a positive difference but and
that’s what inspired me to become an
engineer but it very nearly didn’t
happen I very nearly didn’t become an
engineer it was only a chance encounter
with a poster at my sixth film college
because for the first 17 years of my
life I didn’t even you know I’d never
come across the word engineer I’d never
come across this concept of engineering
it was a chance encounter with a poster
at my sixth film college and then
actually quite a lot of effort on my
part that I was able to discover what
engineering was about and even then it
was a chance encounter with a wind
turbine of all things that really
appeals to my environmental interests
that really inspired me to become an
engineer and that’s a problem not
because I think I’m some sort of super
engineer and if I hadn’t become one then
you know the world would be far worse
off no I’d like to think I’m not so
arrogant about myself but it’s a problem
because it’s a common story there are
large numbers of people who don’t know
what engineering is they don’t know what
engineering can achieve and we have a
real issue with who isn’t becoming an
engineer and what motivations and
interests ants are being represented in
engineering as a result diversity and
engineering is an issue in the UK but
also around the world for example in the
UK we have some of the worst gender
diversity of statistics in Europe with
only 10% of the engineering workforce
being female compared to 30% in some
European countries and I know that
gender diversity isn’t isn’t the end of
a story when we’re talking about
diversity diversity in engineering but
the statistics illustrates a point we
lack diversity and the effect of that is
that the decisions and the values behind
those decisions that are being made by
engineers and I hope I’ve showed you
that engineers are making decisions
about things that really affect
our lives the values behind those
decisions being made by engineers aren’t
completely representative of the people
that will live there and time is of the
essence we’re at a point in our history
that some are calling as the beginning
of the Anthropocene an area where human
activity is happening at such a scale
that we are a significant deciding
factor in the future of our planet we
are changing the climate we are changing
landscapes and natural ecosystems and
we’re either chained even changing
ourselves whether that’s the increased
influence of Technology in our
day-to-day lives or whether that’s the
engineered urban environments that we
increasingly find ourselves in so a few
years ago I think it was 2012 we tipped
the balance to being more urban than
rural so it’s engineers and the
environments that you know we’re
designing as engineers that will in the
future decide how we as human beings
behave and interact with one another so
wouldn’t it be really important that’s
actually the people that are making
those decisions represents us as a
society this is what this is why
diversity in engineering is so important
not just for a justice issue but because
it’s about the world that we’re going to
live in
we are engineering our planet and I
think it’s fair to say that we are
engineering our future so what what are
we going to do about that well I think
one thing that we really need to do is
it’s this whole inspiration piece to
inspire a diverse cohort of people to
become engineers we really have to
change the narrative of what engineering
is about because as I said at the
beginning for me and for many people
like me it was quite hard or it was
quite hard to really discover what
engineering was about and to see how it
appealed to my interests I didn’t
identify with engineering so I think we
have a real opportunity here with the
sustainable development goals so the
sustainable development goals for those
of you that don’t know about them are
said
single set by the international
community that say we recognize that
this Anthropocene is happening that we
are how we are changing the face of our
planet we want to come together and say
actually let’s just not let that happen
as it you know in some sort of dystopian
machine world type type pathway let’s
take control of that path let’s say that
actually we refuse to believe that we
can’t live on this planet and feed
ourselves whilst not also in allowing
the 8.7 million other species that live
here to share this planet equitably with
us let’s not say that let’s not say that
we that our only hope is looking for
another planet let’s actually say that
we have the intelligence we have the
capability to live on this planet much
better than we already do and so I think
the sustainable development goals give
us a really great opportunity to
actually recontextualize and reframe a
narrative around engineering because a
lot of young people today myself
included young anymore really want to do
something about this you know this is
inspiring stuff this is how do we want
our future to look what do we want our
future to look like but quite often we
end up in a place of paralysis these
goals are huge how are we going to
address them you know this is me as an
individual what can I do about that and
I’d actually say that engineering is a
really tangible way of saying how we can
address those that becoming an engineer
is a really great way to take action
against them for example the example I
gave earlier of Joseph passive jet with
his with his sanitation systems
obviously that feeds into the
Sustainable Development Goal number six
are out achieving clean water and
sanitation for everyone but actually it
also has a knock-on impact on some of
the other goals such as quality
education such as good health and
well-being and for me you know it
doesn’t take too long to start drawing
those links between some of the basic
engineering that we talked about and
actually the societal impacts that that
has and I’m part of a movement of
Engineers that are talking about this
doing something about this I’m from an
organization called engineer’s Without
Borders UK we’re part of a global
movement of Engineers Without Borders
organizations that are present in around
80 to 100 different countries around the
world we’re a movement of young
engineers mostly but lots of Engineers
who are passionate about this about
saying that global responsibility a
social and environmental responsibility
should be at the heart of what
engineering is about not at the edges it
should be at the heart it should be the
whole points of what being an engineer
is about making the world a better place
for people now for people tomorrow for
people everywhere and so what we what
we’re doing is taking that narrative and
taking it out into the schools into the
youth groups and spreading that
narrative as far and wide as we can to
try to inspire more people and more
diverse people to become engineers and
make a difference and become engineers
specifically because they want to be an
engineer that makes a difference we
recognize that engineers have an impact
but I think it’s about saying I want to
be an engineer that has a positive
impact and and it’s about saying that
yes part of a narrative of what being an
engineer is it’s great you know
engineers help us get into space that’s
really inspiring that’s really exciting
but I think it’s also about saying that
stories like like this one so this is an
example of one of the projects we’ve
been working on in Kibera which is an
informal settlement in Nairobi in Kenya
East Africa so yes engineering is about
doing amazing crazy things like getting
into space but actually engineering
there’s this really humble and human
side about it as well
it’s about ensuring that there are there
are there’s infrastructure in place such
as good-quality toilets clean drinking
water good good
buildings in which we can learn and
educate that mean that means that young
people all around the world can access
the education that they need to be able
to better their prospects in life for
so my message to you this morning is
that I hope I’ve been able to share with
you that engineers really are
fundamental to making a difference and
really are fundamental to human
development we have been in the past and
we should be in the future but a really
important part of doing that is one to
ensure that weird that we’re inspiring a
diverse cohort of young people to become
engineers to ensure that we have a
representative voice of of those that
represent society but to that they
become engineers because they want to
make a difference and that they
recognize that putting global
responsibility at the heart of what
engineering is about is really really
important thank you for listening [Applause]
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