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Forming the Global Engineer for the Americas: Global Educational Experiences and Opportunities Involving Latin America and the Caribbean Abstract

The Engineering for the Americas Symposium’s Final Report urges the academic sector to develop a change in paradigm to educate the Engineer of the 21st Century, and in particular to focus on this Hemisphere. This urgent call is coming from all sectors, and clearly requires defining and facilitating experiences that would result in the Global Engineer. The European Union has defined and facilitated multi-national educational experiences important to capacity development in their area, but this has not been done for the Western Hemisphere. This brings political, economic and cultural challenges that must be explored and resolved. This paper explores efforts by the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions (LACCEI), the Ibero American Science and Technology Education Consortium (ISTEC), the Asociación Ibero-Americana de Instituciones de Enseñanza de la Ingeniería (ASIBEI), and Engineering for the Americas (EftA) to promote the formation of world-class engineers for the Americas; as well as an assortment of resources and opportunities that facilitate the participation of faculty, staff, and students from Latin America and the Caribbean in a variety of engineering education experiences.

Introduction

There has been an urgent call to academia to educate the Global Engineer. This is in response to the rapid changes occurring in the global economy and the role that engineers have to play in this new scenario. Recently, eight prestigious universities around the world were involved in the first scientific global engineering study1. Their findings lead to four recommendations1: (1) Global competence needs to become a key qualification of engineering graduates; (2) Transnational mobility for engineering students, researchers, and professionals needs to become a priority; (3) Global engineering excellence depends critically on a mutual commitment to partnerships, especially those that link engineering education to professional practice; and (4) Research on engineering in a global context is urgently needed. These recommendations suggest that a very strong collaboration should exist among the academia, the industry and the government to facilitate the best practices to educate world-class engineers2.

The European Union has defined and facilitated multi-national educational experiences important to capacity development in their area, but this has not been done for the Western Hemisphere. This brings political, economic and cultural challenges that must be explored and resolved.

The Engineering for the Americas initiative is an academic, industrial and government grass roots effort that has evolved over the past five years. Its aim is to enhance engineering and technology education in the Western Hemisphere, and to strive for mutual recognition of engineering graduates across national boundaries and cross-border trade agreements, facilitating

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Esparragoza, I., & Jordan, R., & Larrondo Petrie, M. M., & Paez Saavedra, J. (2007, June), Forming The Global Engineer For The Americas: Global Educational Experiences And Opportunities Involving Latin America And The Caribbean Paper presented at 2007 Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, Hawaii. 10.18260/1-2--1791