IIW History 1990-2015

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

Madeleine du Toit

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’. 37 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. 38 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

LINKING PEOPLE, JOINING NATIONS