Mac hosts new EWB event

Farzeen Foda

Senior News Editor

On March 17, amidst the St. Patrick’s Day festivities, was the first ever Global Engineering Conference hosted by the McMaster Chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB).

The event was held as part of National Engineering Month and was jointly sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Engineering and the PV Lab, which operates out of the McMaster Innovation Park.

The goal of the conference was to foster discussion pertaining to engineering education and how academics in the field can incorporate and promote awareness about some of the realities facing the discipline in the 21st century, such as sustainability and social responsibility.

Other topics of discussion pertained to the current requirements for the accreditation of an engineering curriculum according to the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB).

This discussion included David Wilkinson, dean of Engineering, and Jacinta O’Brien, a representative from Engineers Canada, which is the national engineering licensing body.

They discussed “what challenges lie ahead, and a dialogue was established for future enhancements,” said Dhaval Bhavsar, president of the EWB McMaster chapter.

The event featured representatives from Hatch, Engineers Canada and the CEAB.

Given the success of the Conference in its first year, it is quite likely that it may become a yearly event, noted Bhavsar, explaining that such an event could be very informative to students enrolled in disciplines outside of engineering.

“I think any student, whether they are in engineering or not, if they have ever asked the question, ‘Why am I learning this, I am never going to use this in the real world,’ need to be part of this conversation,” he said.