Miguel Angel Yadarola, president of the National Advisory Council of the World Congress and Exhibition “ENGINEERING 2010 – ARGENTINA: Technology, Innovation and Production for Sustainable Development”, is a Civil Engineer, graduated from the National University of Cordoba. In recognition of his 40-year teaching experience, he was distinguished as Consulting Professor of this University. He is Plenary Professor at the University of Belgrano, Buenos Aires. He was member of the Advisory Ministerial Committee that prepared (1997-1998) the Evaluation and Accreditation Standards for all Argentine engineering curricula.
Between 1989 and 1997, he chaired WFEO Committee on Education and Training, of which he is member since 1977. He also chaired UPADI Committee on Education from 1970 to 1989; he was Vice-president of UPADI (1997-2001) and member of WFEO Executive Council (1985-89 and 1997-2001). He is member of UPADI Advisory Council. He was president of UADI, Argentine national member of UPADI and WFEO (1977-80). At present, he is the president of the Pan-American Academy of Engineering. He received the Argentine and Pan-American Engineering Awards, UPADI Gold Vector Award and WFEO Outstanding Service Medal, in recognition of the outstanding achievements at the service of engineering and contribution to the field of teaching and educational research. He has participated with UNESCO in several programs related to engineers’ education and, for more than 40 years, he has been member of UADI, UPADI and WFEO Committees on Education, and chairman in some periods.

In this Newsletter, he gives his opinion about the evolution and the technological progress of the topics related to engineering.  

According to your opinion, which is the evolution of engineering education in Argentina from the point of view of scientific and technological innovation, production and research?

In the last years, as from the decade of 1980, there were important changes, originally caused by the coordinated and committed participation of all the Engineering Deans of our country, grouped in CONFEDI. The Curricular Unification adopted in 1996, with the support of ICI (Spain), proposed a quality model similar to the ones that are applied in developed countries with enough freedom to avoid uniformity that sterilizes any attempt to improve it: the flexible curriculum model. Quality was also improved by the implementation by law of the system of curricula evaluation and accreditation, similar to the ones used in developed countries. A good curriculum, “what is taught”, should be complemented by “how it is taught”, i.e. a proper teaching method that requires permanently updated professors, capable of developing in students the skills and attitudes inherent in “being an engineer”. We have not advanced much in these regards because we are still graduating people who are able to apply knowledge using the latest technological tools but are not generally accustomed to reasoning, questioning, learning from mistakes and failures, which is a way of creating new knowledge. Education will have to highlight skills, what the graduate knows to do, and make sure that he knows how to do it. I summarize this statement with a saying of a friend: “Knowing what to do is wisdom. Knowing how to do it is intelligence. Doing it, and doing it well, is competence”.           

How do you think your engineering branch has contributed to the progress of urban centers, their components and involved social actors, in the protection of social resources?

I practice Civil Engineering, a profession of a wide range, which has been the artificer of the progress of Argentine cities as regards construction, water and sanitation services, transport and urban development in general. We have done it for the sake of a progress that constantly required more and more works and services as the only purpose since, for many years, nobody paid attention that most of these projects caused environmental damages, polluting the air and water courses, creating dumps and industrial waste accumulations that nowadays are very difficult to eliminate. Fortunately, today’s engineers have developed an environmental awareness and a clear view that progress is not only achieved by works, services, industries, but rather by an entire development of the social group. Professional Organizations such as UADI, UPADI and the Pan-American Academy of Engineering have contributed to build engineers’ awareness as regards the need of taking a wider leading role, with a global perspective; with capacity for international mobility and for work in interdisciplinary teams, conscious of the fact that ethical values are not fully complied with the mere observance of rules of conduct but they should be put together with their skills and used as a source of encouragement for a balanced, equitable and inclusive development, capable of reducing inequity and social inequalities.     

How do you think ENGINEERING 2010 – ARGENTINA will contribute to the encouragement of engineers’ participation in current urban problems?

The core topic of this World Congress is to show the identification of engineering and productive enterprises and to strengthen their mutual cooperation in order to encourage innovation in the productive sectors based on the implementation of technologies created and developed in the country. Engineers’ participation in current urban problems is the consequence of the growing role that our profession has in the solutions required by urban concentrations and their uncontrolled growth, with surrounding marginal settlements and slums inside their urban structure. I think that the recommendations of ENGINEERING 2010 – ARGENTINA will be an incentive to call engineers and architects to work together in a city planning that takes into account the urbanization of marginal sectors and the improvement of their layout, providing them with educational services, access to housing, drinking water and sanitation services.  It should creatively solve the disposal of wastes, improve public transport, and develop, in short, the best practices to fight against isolation and social exclusion.