The Bicentennial and the Argentine Engineering

May of 2010. Argentina is 200 years old and we, Argentine people, are celebrating our birthday, remembering those who built our homeland which since then belongs to the large family of sovereign nations of our mother earth.

Argentine engineers wholeheartedly adhere to this festive event and, for this, we are working so that ENGINEERING 2010 – ARGENTINA should have the right scenario for this celebration.

I would therefore like to remember Lawyer and General Manual Belgrano who founded the Nautical School, when the idea of Argentina as an independent nation was being conceived. This school was the first step towards the many Engineering Colleges in which professionals of our activity study and graduate.

Another founder leader was Luis A. Huergo, first Argentine who obtained an engineering degree in 1870. Engineer Huergo was co-founder and President of the Argentine Geographic Institute, of the then National Center of Engineers (today, Argentine Center of Engineers) and of the Argentine Scientific Society.  

Inspired on these men and many others who have lived before us along the history of our independent Nation, we, today’s engineers, are working to receive our colleagues from all over the world with our wide-opened arms and hearts.

And we are doing so guided by the paradigms world engineering has upheld: sustainable development at the service of human beings.

The road that will lead us to this objective should be clear about the difference between development and growth.

Growth is the simple accumulation of wealth whereas development implies an improvement in the quality of life.

But a development which is not sustainable is development without solidarity which, in the short run, means the destruction of our ecosystem.

In Mozambique, there is a proverb that states: “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”.

Let us not forget it.

Till next publication.

Eng. Mario Telichevsky
President of the Central Executive Committee
World Congress and Exhibition
ENGINEERING 2010 – ARGENTINA