Seventh Global Student Forum

Dates: Friday – Thursday, October 15-21 2010
Theme: Encouraging and Developing Future Engineers
Chairs: Sonya Seif-Naraghi (sonya.seif-naraghi at worldspeed.org), Denver Faulk (denver.faulk at worldspeed.org), Roy Ling (royling at nus.edu.sg), Peh Guo Qi (guoqi at nus.edu.sg)

Registration:

All students [undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate levels] should visit www.worldspeed.org for information on how to register to participate in the week of the World Engineering Education Forum. 

Description: The need for well-equipped engineers to tackle the grand challenges of today and tomorrow is obvious. Recruitment is a pressing issue—many developed countries are facing shortages of qualified professionals, and ensuring a diverse engineering force is a universal concern. How can practicing engineers and current students motivate the next generation? The 7th Global Student Forum (GSF) will encourage focused discussion and planning for the solutions to this question. Best practices—outreach, mentoring, and publicity programs for pre-university students—will form the foundation of discussions and the starting point for concrete collaborations and plans of action from participants. Previous GSF attendees have indicated a high level of interest in this avenue for tangibly and meaningfully enhancing the broader engineering community; this year’s innovative World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF) format will allow GSF students to offer insight to and work with other stakeholders in realizing these goals. Current students, academics, government officials, and industry representatives can all contribute to getting students into engineering training programs and ensuring that they are supported in acquiring a meaningful education. Future engineers are not just the incoming first year university students. We need to address the problems in the engineering pipeline at their sources, and SPEED’s tradition of focusing on action plans will empower WEEF attendees to prepare and commit to do so.