ISSUES Principal Investigator Professor Paul Jowitt celebrated ‘the proudest moment’ of his career yesterday, becoming the 145th President of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
President Jowitt was joined by 500 friends, colleagues, ICE members and former presidents at the ICE building in Westminster to mark the beginning of his 12 months in office with the traditional presidential address.
In a rousing speech President Jowitt called for an ‘engineering renaissance’ and insisted that ‘now is the time’ for civil engineers to lead the world through the challenges of climate change, natural and man-made disasters, and economic crisis.
Referring directly to SUE research, President Jowitt said that devising the right implementation strategies for sustainable urban environments was the key challenge for engineers to overcome in the next 20 years.
President Jowitt joins the ranks of Robert Stephenson, Joseph Bazalgette and William Halcrow in taking up the prestigious post and succeeds President Jean Venebles, the first woman to head the ICE.
The new president has already put his new vision for change into practice by broadening the President’s Apprentice initiative to reflect an international approach. This year´s scheme focuses on providing the young engineers´ invaluable experience in the role civil engineers play in international development and unlike other years, when most apprentices have been UK-based, four of the apprentices live in ICE international regions and eight of them are not UK nationals.
To find out more about the new President’s plan of action, read President Jowitt’s interview in New Civil Engineer magazine.
Tags: civil engineer, climate change, economic crisis, ICE, Institution of Civil Engineers, now is the time, President, President Jean Venebles, President of the ICE, President Paul Jowitt, President's apprentice scheme, Professor Paul Jowitt
sustainableurbanenvironments
