Engineers Without Borders UK has opened applications for its second Reshaping Engineering challenge.
The international movement, which aims to put global responsibility at the heart of engineering, will collaborate with architecture charity AzuKo to run the month-long virtual design challenge. The challenge is open to students and professionals working in technical and non-technical roles, who will collaborate to tackle a real-world brief.
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Participants are being asked to commit to four or five hours a week between 23 January and 3 March (around 20 hours in total), during which time they will attend both live and asynchronous sessions led by Engineers Without Borders UK and collaborators. Following registration, participants will be assigned to teams made up of either students or professionals. Each team will be assigned a professional mentor with expertise in globally responsible engineering approaches. The teams’ final designs will then be assessed by a panel of expert judges who are already leading change in the sector.
‘This challenge is an incredible opportunity for participants to deepen their understanding of globally responsible engineering and their ability to solve real-world problems with a collaborative approach to design,’ said John Krause, CEO of Engineers Without Borders UK. ‘By opening applications to those with and without technical training, we want to highlight the importance of working across sectors to foster a broader understanding of the impacts of engineering to make a safer future for everyone.
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‘The inaugural challenge last year was a great success – we even had some previous designs being taken forward by participating companies – and we’re looking forward to seeing how our new cohort will respond to this new brief with empathetic and sustainable solutions,’ he continued.
According to Bethany (no surname supplied), one of the winners of Reshaping Engineering 2022, the challenge was ‘hands down one of the best professional engineering activities I’ve done in my career so far’.
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Another Reshaping Engineering 2022 winner, Erika, said that she ‘learned a lot about bringing together a big picture idea. Often clients come to us and they say, “I have this very specific thing that’s broken and needs fixing.” It was nice to step outside of that design process and think about holistic solutions and also think about how to craft a solution for a problem that’s not so specific. That was a learning exercise for me.’
The organisers have encouraged participants who are currently in employment to consider how taking part in the challenge could contribute to chartership or CPD accreditation, and to explore with their employer how the challenge could be embedded in their day-to-day work.
The results of the challenge will be announced during the final event on 11 March.
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Further details about this year’s Reshaping Engineering challenge can be found here.