IEK Convention Opening Remarks

Gratitude and Recognition

Thank you engineer Paul for welcoming me.

I want to recognize our foreign delegates who have joined us in this convention.

I want to recognize our senior leaders you know our eminent engineers.

I recognize our heads of organizations who are here, engineers and the protocols which have been established.

Welcome to the Official Opening

This morning I want to welcome you to today's function.

And um I know you may be wondering why probably the day has looked a little bit slow but simply because this is the official opening day of the convention.

Yesterday we had the future leaders summit. It was a great day and I want to thank all of you for the role and the participation you participated in to make the day a success.

Awaiting the Chief Guest

So today we're expecting our chief guests who is the head of public service and Mr. Felix Cosgei and he's actually within and will be joining us in a short while.

So we decided as we wait for him let use this opportunity to just talk about some of the things we committed to do in the last convention our 31st IEK convention.

Progress on Commitments from the 31st IEK Convention

Turning Innovations to Commercialization

• Um I don't know whether my presentation can be displayed to the members but um in the 31st IEK convention there are some things we committed to do and one of them is turning innovations to commercialization.
• It was one of the things we committed and we said we want to work towards and uh in response to that the IEK has signed a memorandum of understanding with the council of engineering deans and principles to support young engineers from nurturing university innovations to auxilarating them and you know all the way up to commercialization.
• The MOU with the council of engineering deans is very important because the deans are leading innovations through research and training and as IEK we have the advantage of interacting with the entrepreneurs.
• We are able to try and source um you know funding and organize forums for the students to pitch their programs.
• And you heard yesterday the lady who was on a panel session here talking about sense and how that idea was presented and pitched through this convention and now it has gone into something that has gone commercial.
• So basically the partnership provide a platform for expanding innovation ecosystem and advocate for increased research and development investment and also protection of intellectual property because that is one of the other things we noticed is a challenge for young innovators.

Task Forces on National Priorities

• So engineers and policym IEK has formed different task forces and some of the task forces are specialized and aligned to national priority sectors.
• We have a task force looking at issues to do with universal health, affordable housing, manufacturing, transport and highways, agriculture and food security, ICT and digital superhighway.
• And you know you talk of all these things they are actually part of the government transformation agenda which is basically called beta energy water buildings and the first task forces provide technical input.
• They are basically experts in the specific fields who are brought in now to review whatever policies are under review or proposed and they able to put in the input of engineers.

Engagement with County Governments

• So on engineering and development IEK is deepening engagement with county governments to strengthen the role of engineers in social economic transformation.
• We have held a number of engagements with Nairobi County for instance uh the council of governors we have had engagements with them and indeed this year we participated at the devolution conference in Kisumu SIA where IEK K organized a side event as part of our partnership with the county governments.
• It's a key milestone. We signed an MOU with Makueni County aimed at institutionalizing engineering expertise in county planning and project exhibition.
• Now we all appreciate that you know county governments were created as a result of uh promulgation of the new constitution but then structures for running the counties were not there.
• This is the time now the counties are struggling to put up those infrastructure to help them and as IEk we're trying to propose and offer solutions that will help them in running especially engineering infrastructure projects.

Washington Accord Progress

• Hash IEK has been a great supporter of the quest and the preparation into ascension of the Washington Accord.
• This particular assignment was led by the engineers board of Kenya and IEK has been supportive of the process.
• Kenya was granted uh provisional you know certification into the session of the Washington Accord.
• Now there is a lot despite the fact that Kenya has been given provisional status. This is a time now we need to work even harder to demonstrate that we actually deserve to get full status.
• This full status would grant our engineers opportunity to move around and work anywhere in the world. an opportunity to have works, designs and works done by our engineers to be recognized.
• It's a major milestone and achievement that EBK has actually uh managed to to take us into.

Graduate Engineers Internship Programs

• EBK continues to roll out the graduate internship engineers program. It's a structured three years program and as IEK we are supporting them in terms of engaging with also industry requesting for opportunities for internships for engineers.
• We are using and leveraging on our network with the industry to try and help our students in this program.
• However, the way it is structured now, it does not take care of all the graduating students. EBK takes about 500 and we have in excess of 2,000 engineering graduates graduating every year.
• I want to take this opportunity currently to actually implore upon entrepreneurs, organizations and employers. Please grant internship opportunities to these engineers.
• Unlike many other courses, you don't just become an engineer after graduation. You become a professional engineer after practicing.
• If we don't do that it will amount to wasting resources because we take a lot of resources to train engineers for 5 years and then after that we don't give them the opportunity to practice they get disillusioned they divert from engineering and go into other fields.

Advocacy for Manufacturing Sector

• IEK has actually been a strong advocate of this and we have a task force which is aimed at influencing policy to align with global standards and actually rally the government to offer incentives that would support manufacturing in the country.
• IEK issued a public statement outlining key challenges in the manufacturing sector leading to a successful consultative meeting with the honorable Abu Bakr Hassan CBS the principal secretary state department for investment.

Dissemination of Engineering Knowledge

• IEK is taking an active role in this and in one of the ways we are doing this is we open an IEK YouTube channel where we are recording engineering marvels and activities happening around for purposes of enhancing uh knowledge transfer to our members.
• One of the first videos was about some young engineer who created uh a startup called Ubuntu for dispensing water in the village.
• We saw the young man who talked about you know making some items from water hyenins and and now he he's taken that into commercial stage.
• IEK has issued a request for proportion for the development of IEK engineering plaza – a building where we will assemble engineers of various sectors in one place (like doctor's plaza).

ICT, AI & IoT Promotion

• IEK is promoting advanced digital skills such as AI and IoT to elevate competitiveness of the engineers.
• We have a training program as IEK that runs on annual basis and one of the courses we have identified is AI and IoT.
• We organized a course on artificial intelligence for engineers where we partnered with the world federation of engineering organization and the Chinese academy of science and technology.
• We are glad that the government also is doing a great job through the ministry of ICT with digital hubs, Konza Technopolis, and IoT/AI implementations.
• IEK is looking forward to partnering with the government because the engineers are really the owners of IoT and the greatest users and beneficiaries.

Advocacy for STEM Education

• IEK advocates for STEM foundations including issuing public statements on the importance of mathematics in the CBC and senior school pathways.
• Mathematics for instance is a universal course that should be actually available for every child in Kenya.

Sustainability and Circular Economy

• IEK continues uh to embed sustainability and circular economic principles across its programs and advocacy.
• Engineers are being encouraged to integrate eco-friendly practices in the renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and green construction.
• We are partnering with drivers in various sectors, including recognition of the green energy park being developed by KenGen with exhibitions here at the conference.
• Examples: Eco Cloud data center, green fertilizer production groundbreaking, incentives for industries using green energy.

Public Private Partnerships (PPPs)

• IEK has actively advocated for greater inclusion of engineers in PPP frameworks including issuing public statements and engaging media.
• We have done capacity building in PPPs to ensure that our engineers are capacitated and prepared.
• That is the only way we can ensure that the PPP models we are adopting actually beneficial both to our economy to our country and to our members.

Closing

So those are some of the things we said we would want to do uh in the period and we made these uh commitments during the 31st IEK convention.

This is an a bridged version of what we have done but if you look at our conference magazines you'll be able to look at it uh in deep and actually be able to try and read for yourself and I invite you all to have a look at that.

Thank you very much and I wish you a very fruitful day during this convention centennial.