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FIDIC’s ‘tomorrow people’ blazing a trail for the industry

“The FIDIC Young Professionals grouping is the future leadership of our federation and indeed the industry itself.” So said new FIDIC chief executive Nelson Ogunshakin as he introduced the Young Professional Symposium at the FIDIC annual infrastructure conference in Berlin today. 

Addressing delegates, outgoing FIDIC YP chair, Jomanah Al Btoush of Jordanian infrastructure company Arabtech Jardaneh, highlighted the work of the Young Professionals grouping and the wide range of activities and initiatives the group has been involved in over the last year. Presenting a comprehensive 40-page YP report to the conference, Al Btoush said that it was crucial that FIDIC member associations supported YP activities around the world, both in terms of time and also financial support.

The YP report, The reflection of Young Professionals, covers a number of crucial issues for the industry and offers a fresh and relevant take on challenges and opportunities but from the perspective of younger members of the sector who are more in touch with future generations who will be directly affected by the work and influence of consulting engineers.

Contributors to the report and speakers at the Young Professionals session take an uncompromising approach to the changes affecting business and society. “The status quo is no longer acceptable,” said session chair Michael Walker from Canadian engineers McElhanney. “We need a new approach to address the challenges and opportunities impacting our industry because without wholesale change we will never achieve our potential. The status quo is holding us back,” said Walker.

Echoing these sentiments, Jomanah Al Btoush was keen to stress the importance of FIDIC engaging with the next generation of engineers and making them a key part of the organisation in the future. “Our young professionals are becoming more active and understand their responsibility for the future of the industry on the local, regional and international stage,” she said. “We need FIDIC member associations and their firms to become more aware and supportive of YP groupings because they will reap the benefits from working with them,” Al Btoush said.

You can follow the FIDIC 2018 conference on twitter using the hashtag #FIDICBerlin2018 and view the conference agenda here.

Click here to watch the conference live in real time.

If you would like to contact Andy Walker about this, or any other story, please email awalker@infrastructure-intelligence.com.