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LINKING PEOPLE, JOINING NATIONS
welding. It was an unrivalled success in communicating with
young people and an equally successful YPIC was again held in
Budapest in the following year (2015), with a third planned for
Germany in 2017.
Prof. Madeleine du Toit (Australia), who succeeded
Kanits as the Chair of WG-COM&MARK in 2013, saw one
of the Working Groups’ main objectives as creating a dedicated
forum for young professionals within the framework of IIW
and the pursuance of innovative ways of communicating
with the younger generation. These efforts were to lead to
greater involvement of young professionals in IIW’s Annual
Assemblies and Conferences and it was announced after the Annual Assembly in Helsinki,
Finland in 2015 that ‘the recent focus on young professionals was rewarded by the
participation of over 80 “future leaders” of the global welding community’.
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The highlight of the assembly was a Young Professionals Evening
where the only real challenge was to have fun and make friends. Imbued
by the attendance and success of the meeting Marquis, IIW President at the
time, sent out a flotilla of cars to scour the neighbourhood for pizzas and
to bring as many back to the meeting as possible. It was a cordial evening
which cemented many relationships and the realisation that this could drive
IIW to new heights through the next generation of leaders and scientists.
Modern techniques of communicating by social media through networking,
such as aYoung Professional Corner on IIW’s website, Facebook and Twitter
accounts, naturally became ‘de rigueur’ for this new generation of welding
engineers who were starting to take up much greater interest in IIW than
ever before.
From another perspective, it is easy to underestimate the role of IIW International
Conferences and International Congresses as a means of communication between people
and the importance of the opportunities they gave for both networking and dissemination
of information on the latest advances in technology and research. The backbone, or engine
room of the IIW, has always been its Working Units especially the Commissions. These
Working Units served as global centres for the communication and exchange of scientific
information in their areas of expertise.
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Strong international networks have been formed
uniting experts and professionals from industry, research institutes and the world’s leading
universities – the very centres of excellence that young professionals aspire to graduate from.
The outputs from these Working Units, in communicating IIW best practices,
guidelines, documents and standards, are symbols of quality and scientific excellence that
Madeleine du Toit