Between October 17 and 20, engineering professionals from all over the world analyzed the most urgent topics in terms of engineering and favored a fruitful exchange of proposals to be carried out in the middle and long run.

The World Congress and Exhibition ENGINEERING 2010-ARGENTINA, with the motto “Technology, Innovation and Production for Sustainable Development”, was organized by the Argentine Union of Associations of Engineers (UADI) and the Argentine Center of Engineers (CAI), with the sponsorship and participation of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) which represents more than 15 million professionals worldwide.

At the same time as celebrating the bicentenary of the Revolution of May, the key objective of the Congress was to update, analyze and spread the national and global situation of engineering and to put an emphasis on its internal cohesion, its driving force for progress and its interrelation with science, the productive enterprise and society in general.

From left to right: Eng. Mario Telichevsky, president of UADI and of the Central Executive Committee, organizer of the World Congress and Exhibition ENGINEERING 2010-ARGENTINA; Eng. Luis Di Benedetto, president of the Argentine Center of Engineers; Dr. Jorge Grandi, director of the Regional Office for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean; and  Eng. María Jesús Prieto Laffargue, president of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) during the Opening Ceremony of the Congress.
 

Left: Arch. Julio De Vido, Minister of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services, during his opening speech. Right: large attendance at the Opening Ceremony.

The World Congress and Exhibition ENGINEERING 2010-ARGENTINA was the most widely-attended and successful event along the history of the Argentine engineering. Organized during four years, it was carried out between October 17 and 20, 2010, with several pre- and post-Congress activities, including the three-day course “Entrepreneurship in Engineering towards Sustainable Development” for young Latin American engineers, and the ISTIC Workshop “Science, Engineering and Industry”, which analyzed with an international high-level the relation between these areas.

In parallel with the Congress, more than 12,000 people visited and praised the Exhibition due to its quality and the technical content of its more than thirty stands of professional and educational institutions and firms which introduced new technologies, innovations and services related to engineering.

More than 4,500 participants attended the lectures of the academic area, out of whom around 1,000 were foreign and, among the Argentine attendees, there were many professors and advanced engineering students from all over the country, owing to a scholarship granted by the Argentine Ministry of Education.

Besides the professionals who registered in the Congress, there were also invited prominent personalities of Argentine engineering, officials of public agencies and international high-level experts. Half of the almost 150 speakers travelled from abroad to deliver their lectures in front of an audience which was very interested in listening to experts in each of the specialties. These relevant papers as well as the conclusions of the chapters and other details of the event and its opening and closing ceremonies can be found at the Congress website www.ingenieria2010.com.ar.

As regards free papers, 1,097 abstracts were submitted, out of which more than 400 were accepted and presented by their authors in the several chapters of the Congress: Information Technologies and Communications, Energy and Climate Change, Innovation in Primary Production and Agro-Alimentary Industries, Megacities and their Infrastructure, Engineering Education for Sustainable Development, Professional Practice of Engineering, and two forums on women and young people in engineering and business

In its final Declaration, the Congress called upon world representatives of engineering and public authorities to strengthen the promotion of engineering courses of studies and to support politically and financially the action of engineering institutions in order to boost its capacity to encourage productive innovation and to contribute to furthering “the effective accomplishment of the world commitment to overcoming hunger, extreme poverty, social segregation, gender inequality, environmental damage and climate change threats”.

From left to right: Eng. Tony Marjoram, responsible for the Engineering Science Programme of UNESCO; Eng. Conrado Bauer, academic director of ENGINEERING 2010 – ARGENTINA; Eng. Kamel Ayadi, president of the International Advisory Council and WFEO Past President; Dr.-Ing. Dato Lee Yee Cheong, WFEO Past President and president of the Board of the International Centre for South-South Cooperation on Science, Technology and Innovation, (ISTIC) with the sponsorship of UNESCO; Dr. Viktor Klima, president of Volkswagen Argentina and South America; and Dr. Enrique Iglesias, Secretary-General of the Ibero-American General Secretariat.

Left: Arch. Julio De Vido, Minister of Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services and Eng. Luis Di Benedetto, president of the Argentine  Center of Engineers, during the official opening of the Exhibition. Right: presentation of posters.

Large attendance at the Forum “Young People in Engineering and Business”.

Left: audience of the Forum “Women in Engineering and Business”. Right: conference rooms at their full capacity during Congress lectures.

Eng. Mauricio Macri, Major of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, during his address at the Closing Ceremony of the Congress.