Institution news
The 2016 edition of the Southern Asia Region Speak Out for Engineering (SOFE) was unique for many reasons. It was held on 15 July 2016 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, alongside the Southern Asia Region (SAR) board meeting.
For the first time in eight years, SAR SOFE welcomed participation from Bangladesh, extending institution’s outreach in the region. The SOFE finals had four participants, one each from the various member countries (India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh). It was the closest competition in recent history with just one point separating the first and the second position winners.
The talks had diverse topics ranging from hydrocarbons to solar pre-heating boiler feedwater, from biomedical microelectromechanical systems (Bio-MEMS) to aircraft winglet analysis.
Farham Ellahi from Pakistan made a case for solar preheating of boiler feedwater and it being a sustainable solution. Darshika H M D from Sri Lanka left the audience feeling the pressure while elucidating on the subject of MEMS. Finally, Tahsin Sejay Sanjat from Bangladesh showed results from his computational fluid dynamics research analysis of aircraft winglets and the effect of varying cant angle. In a closely fought finals, Tahsin come out on top and was adjudged as the winner and will represent SAR at the Asia-Oceania Finals to be held in Malaysia next year.
This was the first time that the SAR SOFE winner has come from Bangladesh, that too in their first attempt.
The next day, 16 July 2016, the Southern Asia Region board gathered for the fifth regional board meeting at Galadari hotel, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Deliberations were led by the SAR Chairman, Sam Perera who congratulated the member countries on the growth in the region in the last one year. While various new ideas were discussed, two subjects stood out. There was a consensus that there needs to be better inter-regional communications to foster exchange of ideas. Secondly, the subject of Affiliate-to-Associate conversion came up. It was felt that the Affiliate and Associate members aren’t exploiting the current offerings of the Institution and there is a need to better communicate the benefits to the members. Additionally, there was a discussion on joint work with other professional engineering institutions.
Following the SAR meeting, SAR chairman, Sam Perera met with the ICE president, Sir John Armitt for discussions on potential collaborations at a dinner organised jointly by Sri Lanka Association of Institution of Civil Engineers, and City and Guilds.
Siddartha Khastgir, SAR board member said: “This was one the most fruitful discussions we have had and each member took away action points for their Branches and groups.”
To find out more about the activities of the Southern Asia Region then please visit the Southern Asia NearYou pages.