Institution news
The representatives came to London on 29 September to help shape the strategy for young members worldwide and share their knowledge with peers from other regions.
The group also met to decide which ideas generated at the YMB strategy weekend – held the previous weekend in Cardiff – would make the most difference to young members and should be implemented in their regions.
Marcus Nicholls, Vice Chair of the
Young Members Board and International Young Members Board Representative chaired the meeting and described how the event will help the regions better engage students and young engineers around the world.
He said: "A key desire for next year's international young members’ strategy includes providing more design-type competitions for international members, in addition to our continuing support for Formula Student.”
“We are also working to improve communications channels for international members. Those working in the engineering profession are very mobile and many engineers move with their work to a variety of locations across the world during their career. We want to provide young engineers with a professional home no matter where they are.”
Deepak Lall, Caribbean Representative from the Americas Region based in Trinidad said as a result of the meeting he now had an increased awareness of the services the Institution offers to the people in his region.
“There is a definite need for IMechE in our region. There are many people with practical engineering skills but if they also become professionally registered with IMechE they can gain a global badge that is recognised internationally and can benefit from better job opportunities,” said Deepak.
Wing-Hay Tsang, International Regional Young Member Representative for the North-East Asia Region said: “The meeting has provided the perfect opportunity for me to relay any issues or concerns from my region and share success stories. Meetings like these are important so the whole IMechE community can improve together and we can learn from each other.”
Anshul Singla, International Regional Young Member Representative for the Southern Asia Region based in New Delhi said: “We finished the young members’ strategy weekend and the most important idea we took from it was that we need more events for young members.”
Szabolcs Szokol, Switzerland Young Member Country representative from the Europe Region said: “Events like these help the international regions develop stronger working relationships with each other and I’m looking forward to the new events for international members.”
Iman Kouchouk the Institution’s International Member Development Executive based in London organised the meeting for the delegates.
She said: “On behalf of the Institution I would like to thank the young member representatives who attended this inaugural event at One Birdcage Walk. For the first time we had a young member representative from each of the international regions in the one place at the one time and it was a very productive meeting to say the least!
“I would like to thank all those who attended for sharing the best practice from their respective regions with each other and our UK-based Young Members Board.
“Following this meeting, we hope to produce some clear role descriptions for the Young Member Regional Reps and Young Member Country Reps as well as a clearer definition and understanding of the young member network internationally.
“An organigram of the International Young Member Network will be produced as a result of the meeting and will soon be available from the Volunteer Resource Centre.”
Find out more about the
Young Members Board.