"Manufacturing is a key part of the Governments Action Plan for jobs and is a driving force behind Ireland's economic growth" says Taoiseach

An Taoiseach Enda Kenny TD will lead the UCD Engineering Graduates Association Autumn Panel Discussion on Manufacturing on October 22nd next starting at 6pm in the Clinton Auditorium Belfield (beside Engineering Building). Manufacturing is very topical at present. What is not generally known is that indigenous firms produce about 50% of total Manufacturing in Ireland; the balance produced by foreign direct investment (FDI) firms from abroad who are also very welcome to Ireland.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny, EGA President PJ Rudden and UCD President, DR. Hugh Brady at the centenary of the old UCD Engineering building (now the Taoiseach's office) 

The Taoiseach will be greeted on arrival by UCD President, Dr Hugh Brady, Dean of Engineering, Professor Gerry Byrne and myself. The Taoiseach will meet our distinguished Panel of Speakers from around Ireland - Ian Quinn of Creganna-Tactx Medical, Galway, Martin McVicar, Combilift, Clontibret Monaghan, Philip O'Doherty, E&I Engineering, Burnfoot, Donegal and Edmond Harty, Dairymaster Causeway, Co Kerry - who will tell their story of economic development and job creation - all from small beginnings each to national and international success stories.

Who would have thought that a small start-up company in North Kerry would be manufacturing and exporting 500 automatic milking machine installations in modular radial shape to farmers in China each year?

And hands up who knows what the function of the Dairymaster Moo Monitor is? Well, if you want to know, you will have to attend the Panel Discussion on October 22nd at 6pm.

I first came across this firm at an Engineers Ireland regional meeting in Tralee IT, some 2 years ago and have since marvelled ever since at their achievements. It was no surprise to me when Dr. Edmond Harty won the 2012 E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year.

The four speakers represent the biomedical, transport, electrical and agri-food engineering industries respectively. Our manufacturing output grew in early 2013 and already represents about a quarter of our GDP, according to the World Bank. Most of the markets for our products are international to the BRIC developing countries especially China and to Europe also.

Dr. Edmond Harty, Dairymaster

 

Philip O'Doherty, E&I Engineering

Ian Quinn, Creganna Tactx Medical

Martin McVicar, Combilift

All of our four speakers are leading global players in their niche areas and have been assisted in their development by Enterprise Ireland. Two of our speakers are winners of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year - Martin McVicar and Edmond Harty. Ian Quinn is Ireland's leading indigenous manufacturer of biomedical products employing some 800 people and Philip O'Doherty employs some 675 people making electrical products on Malin Head Co Donegal.

As I've stated in many other fora, engineering graduates of UCD and other colleges are leading the national economic recovery in manufacturing exports - both indigenous and FDI companies. To grow our way out of recession we need more of both type companies producing products and services out of Ireland.



Manufacturing

The foundation of a successful manufacturing nation is our educational system. We need to build more of an entrepreneurial class of innovators who can challenge leading national and international brands in the same way as Coca Cola, VW, Siemens and others who have become household names. In this regard the German model of industrial training needs serious appraisal and adoption in Ireland.

Richness in education and economic planning leads to Innovation, Enterprise and Jobs. I'm delighted to see that the Department of Finance under Secretary General John Moran, is leading a new generation of national economic planning similar to the early exercises 50 years ago. That exercise together with the necessary structural reforms in education and training will see us ready as a nation to adopt innovative and competitive methods of manufacture as the Irish economy recovers to steady growth and employment levels.

This promises to be an interesting and exciting evening in over 2 weeks time. All are welcome regardless of profession or occupational status as job creation in Ireland must be a shared experience of all our people.

Medical Stent

It Really Is Going to Be an Electric Picnic After All!

The UCD Engineers Picnic is fast becoming a real Electric Picnic with the generous sponsorship by ESB, Eircom and Eirgrid - lots of electricity there by the electrical, electronic and communications utilities! Thank you sincerely ESB, Eircom and Eirgrid for relieving our worries after our brave EGA Picnic Committee slashed the ticket prices from €40 to €20 per head to encourage as many young engineering graduates to attend as possible.

There's more exciting Electric news and that's the Engineering Exhibition on Smart Grids and Interconnection to UK and Europe which will be displayed by the Energy Needs Ireland (ENI) students under Professor Mark O'Malley of the UCD Electricity Research Centre (ERC).



Energy Needs Ireland at work



Added to that will be quality BBQ food by highly reputable caterers and a music medley by a combination of TradSoc and Jazzsoc, both of UCD, running from 4pm to 9pm - all in the ambiance of the UCD Rose Garden.

Book your ticket now here and see you in the Rose Garden. All are welcome not just UCD grads!

Project Maths is having Positive Impact

The new Project Maths approach to the learning and teaching of maths at Second Level is a good start but cannot be an overnight success. Reading the national media this week on the 2013 Leaving Cert results, one would think that Project Maths and bonus points are magic wands towards high maths literacy! They are not! It’s a whole new applied approach that will take years maybe a generation towards us fully understanding the everyday usage and value of maths in our everyday lives.

I gained an appreciation of the challenges faced by students and teachers of maths when, as Vice President of Engineers Ireland a few years ago, I chaired a Report on the Learning and Teaching of Maths and Science at Second Level Report. This Report led to a lot of welcome changes in the new approach adopted by recent Ministers of Education.

Everyone uses maths even when buying food in the supermarket. At higher level, complex maths systems lie behind modern day inventions like the iPhone, chemical processes, water treatment, flying aeroplanes, PC’s, electricity networks and Google on the Internet. Most of us don't know or care what maths lie behind these modern gadgets or systems and don't need to know as long as they work! When the lights don't switch on, then we tend to blame the engineers but when the lights do switch on (as in 99.9% of the time!) we rarely appreciate their value.

Project Maths is designed to help us gain a deeper understanding of what we are learning - to get us away from the 'rote learning' school systems of the past. Generations of students and teachers have been brought up to apply a diet of formulae and theorems 'learnt by heart' without needing to understand what they were doing. We are not going to change this overnight.

The early signs from Project Maths are very positive. Helped by extra bonus points for Grade D or better on the Honours Leaving Cert, the numbers sitting the Honours Maths paper this year are up more than 50%. That's good news. Also, the fear of taking the Honours Maths paper and not getting at least a Grade D and thus completely failing the Leaving Cert is now gone. That's more good news!

  

If suddenly the Leaving Cert grades were to dramatically improve overnight with Project Maths then we would say that the marking systems were now easier than before to make the new approach look good. The media would cry wolf again!

Of course, we can train our kindergarden and Primary school children to 'understand and think maths' from first principles. But this would take over 20 years before this year’s Junior Infants go into the workforce.

Even then I worry more about the teachers than the students. It was discovered lately that approx 60% of maths teachers in Second Level Schools had no degree in maths. They were unqualified to teach maths or were 'out of field' as a learned University of Limerick research report euphemistically put it. That issue once known is also now being addressed with extra teacher training which will also take years to embed. For instance many of the better teachers of the old system have no PC or lack any IT skills to take the new on-line learning on board. Many simply did not see the new unfamiliar Project Maths approach coming down the track.

Maths is a sensitive and critically important subject to get right as it will greatly impact on our future economic development as a nation. Decades of national systemic failure in the learning and teaching of maths will not be solved overnight but we have made a good start. Our failures in this respect were firmly understood by the previous Government who introduced the extra bonus points to improve student uptake at Honours LC level. This has certainly worked but as Minister Ruairi Quinn stated this week it’s only a temporary measure until we embed the Project Maths approach. The Minister is correct in defending the new syllabus as a work in progress that needs ongoing support by industry particularly in the engineering profession. I'm glad to see in yesterday's Times that he acknowledges Engineers Ireland to be one of the industry leaders on this issue.

I am delighted to report that Engineers Ireland are still giving the free Leaving Cert Maths Grinds on Saturdays during the school year and have extended the service beyond Dublin to the other major cities.

New UCD Engineers Newsletter launched by EGA

A new Engineers eNewsletter has been launched by the UCD Engineering Graduates Association to keep Members and potential New Members fully informed on happenings in UCD and in Engineering in general.

The first Summer Edition dated July 2013 is available (here). Its up to date on all the main stories from the New UCD President, our latest Distinguished Graduate Award and of course the upcoming Engineers Picnic BBQ in the Rose Garden later this month. Don't forget to book the Picnic online on the EGA website homepage (here)! There's also a call to join the EGA at reduced cost (here)!



EGA Newsletter

The new Editor of the Engineers Newsletter is Dr. Ciaran McNally of the UCD Civil Structural and Environmental School. Ciaran has put together a superb e-publication in a short space of time. It is hoped to issue the Newsletter quarterly in July, October, January and April of each year. Members of the EGA are invited to contribute Articles, Letters to the Editor and Opinions directly to Editor Ciaran.

Editor Dr. Ciaran McNally

I would like to thank Dr. Liam Madden, Vice President Xilinx Corp in Silicon Valley, California. Also, EGA Board Members, Cormac Mannion for his piece on Energy Efficiency and Angela Treanor for publicising the Picnic also through Facebook. I've mentioned it myself on Twitter (@PJRudden) a number of times. The administration of the Picnic is now in the very capable hands of Karina O'Neill, Marketing Manager for the College of Engineering and Architecture assisted by Robyn Kelly on Entertainment and Tony O'Brien on Sponsorship. Karina, Robyn and Tony are also on the EGA Board.

I hope you enjoy the Engineers Newsletter which will keep up updated on what the EGA are doing. The idea of restarting the Newsletter came to me from a very informative meeting I had earlier in the year with 6 EGA Past Presidents - Tom Hardiman, Des Green, Liam Connellan, Colm Bannon, Tony O'Brien and Michael Loughnane - together with the UCD Dean of Engineering Gerry Byrne.

UCD Distinguished Graduate Honoured

Yesterday we hosted our annual lunch and Distinguished Graduate Award. This year's lunch was very well attended, driven in part by our new sponsors, including Bord Gais and Nicholas O'Dwyer & Partners. Sincere thanks also to Arup, CRH, Engineers Ireland, ESB and RPS.

In my welcoming address Speech I briefed the audience on the new EGA Strategy 2013 and outlined our success to date in raising our profile for the benefit of engineering graduates and UCD in general.

Photo left to right Professor Gerry Byrne UCD Dean of Engineering, Dr Liam Connellan, PJ Rudden President UCD Engineering Graduates Association and Marie Connellan

Dr Liam Connellan and PJ Rudden President UCD Engineering Graduates Association

The Distinguished Graduate Award went to Dr Liam Connellan, BE in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering UCD, 1957. Dr. Connellan was Director General of the Confederation of Irish Industry from 1972 to 1992. He then became Chairman of the National Roads Authority from 1994 to 2001, President of Royal Dublin Society from 1995 to 1998 and President of Engineers Ireland in 2001-2002. He was also Chairman of the Veolia Environment, an organisation with responsibility for planning, building and operating the Dublin LUAS light rail. Dr. Connellan has also been decorated by both the French and German Governments in the past. Dr. Connellan's CV

In my opening comments, I remarked that we were planning that Manufacturing Engineering would be the focus of our Panel Discussion this Autumn. In his acceptance speech Dr. Connellan took up this theme and outlined the tremendous progress we are making nationally with indigenous manufacturing and mentioned Keenan of Bagenalstown, Mc Hale of Ballinrobe and Dairymaster in Tralee in addition to the tremendous export success of our food and diary industry.

It was a most successful and engaging event, enhanced by the stunning setting of the John Field Room at the National Concert Hall. Sincere thanks to Fionnuala McGowan of UCD Engineering for all the arrangements.

EGA Lunch Sponsors

EGA Distinguished Graduates

Engineers Picnic

The Gathering is a Government tourism initiative for 2013 to maximise visitor numbers to Ireland this year and to especially welcome back our diaspora from abroad even for a week or a weekend! As we know over the past 5 years many of our engineering graduates especially civil and construction engineers have left our shores for foreign lands due to the recession in Ireland.

We are especially appealing to our grads in the UK and have arranged the Engineers Picnic in UCD to coincide with the UK Bank Holiday weekend at the end of August! We want to welcome you home that weekend if you can possibly manage it. You will meet your classmates and other UCD graduates and many of your old lecturers and professors.  

We start in the UCD Rose Garden with a BBQ at 4pm with food, drink and a variety of music through the evening and into the night.

At the EGA Board last Spring, I initially suggested we call the event Ceili na hInnealltoiri (showing my age!). However, our enthusiastic Gathering Committee led by Angela Treanor (2011) as Chair, Robyn Kelly (2008) and Tony O'Brien (1973) were entrusted with the organisation of the event and decided it would be called the Engineers Picnic.

The UCD Engineering grads who I know enthusiastically endorsed their choice and here we are! This goes to prove which generation now runs the EGA! Nevertheless the older ones including myself still add the odd words of wisdom and experience. Its a very interesting and dynamic cocktail I can tell you as those of you who will attend the Picnic will testify.

All are welcome including family members and graduates attending don't have to be from UCD Engineering although I imagine that most will be.This is an inclusive Gathering and the cost per head will be approx €20 (to be confirmed) depending on sponsorship.