Institution news
Jamalulail Ismail AIMechE, formerly an engineer at Caterpillar in the north east of England, is travelling from Sunderland to Malaysia with his wife and four children, aged between 10 and 17. It is a distance of almost 18,000 miles across 39 countries, which will take around 100 days. They have named their epic journey ‘The Road to Malaysia’, which they are undertaking in a 1998 Mercedes Sprinter motor home. The family aims to promote peace through diversity and inclusion, and to illustrate within their own experiences and by highlighting the achievements of others, how engineering is all around us, in our world.
The family’s favourite experiences so far have included a visit to the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart, which Jamaluail said his children found inspiring; and the Nemo Science Museum in Amsterdam, where they learned about an early Dutch electric car.
It is the everyday opportunities to learn about engineering which have really struck a chord with Jamalulail. He said: “Last week, my family and I arrived at a camp site in Harmanli, Bulgaria. This camp site is owned by a young British entrepreneur originally from Stratford-Upon-Avon. My children learned so much from him, with his hands-on engineering skills, which have enabled him to survive in a foreign land. Not only that, he managed a business in a very remote area. An understanding of basic principle of heat-transfer enable him to design and build a house which copes with extreme hot during summer and extreme cold in the winter. He also used solar power for electric.”
“I’ve never pushed my kids to be engineers but I want them to learn and understand the benefit of engineering skills in our day-to-day lives. This is why we try to expose our kids to engineering activities on the journey.”
From encountering members of different countries and communities, to the tasks involved in undertaking and recording the journey, Jamalulail and his family feel that: “Travelling is the best university.”
Four Malaysian TV and radio channels are broadcasting regular updates of the trip, including Bernama TV, which is broadcasting the expedition for two minutes every day until the end of October.
Jamalulail encourages members of the Institution to get in touch with ideas for engineering educational activities for his children on the journey; to get in touch or to follow the family’s experiences go to Twitter at byroad2malaysia or visit the website: www.byroadtomalaysia.com and read more at http://www.nst.com.my/nation/general/45-000km-of-culture-and-history-1.323358
Meanwhile, Sutan Nazarudin Ani, an engineering student at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore and member of the Institution, is planning to combine his twin passions – for engineering and for his Vespa scooter – on a four-month journey from Singapore to London, which is known as ‘We-Ride’.
Sutan and a fellow Vespa enthusiast Yusri, will each ride their scooters on this epic journey, aiming to fund-raise and take part in practical projects in order to contribute to NTU’s student financial aid fund, iGave. Sutan explains that, having benefited from the resource himself, he wishes now to ‘give something back’ to the fund, while also engaging in local acts of charity. These will include projects in which he and his 12-strong ground team of fellow students can put to good use their engineering knowledge.
Sutan’s great objective is to encourage and inspire ‘humanitarian engineering’: to identify schools and orphanages where equipment and facilities may need repair or improvement, and to tackle these jobs with fellow engineers and students for the good of local communities.
With a projected embarkation date of February 2014, the four-month Vespa ride will take Sutan across 22 nations, including Cambodia, Laos and India; and through many countries in Europe.
Sutan will be sporting the Institution’s logo on his travels, and aims to encourage other engineering students to join and spread news of the Institution’s work. He will be liaising with NTU colleagues during projects to apply engineering solutions to local problems.
He said, of his endeavour: “Our message is to promote humanitarian engineering to all engineers. We possess a skill that can change the world, why not use it to better the lives of those who are in need of it?”
To find out more about Sutan’s Vespa journey; and the ways in which you can support his trip contact him at: SUTAN1@e.ntu.edu.sg