KUWAIT: The Young Engineers/ Future Leaders (YE/FL), a standing committee of the World Federation of Engineering Organization (WFEO), is holding an international conference from Feb 10 to 12 at the Al-Rayah Ballroom. This event is held under the patronage of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. The conference also includes an exhibition related to it.
The three-day conference includes issues such as self skills development (interpersonal relations), development of project management and finance, promotion of entrepreneurial and marketing skills, development of young engineers' responsibilities towards society, success stories and others. Supporting youth is one of the priorities of the parliament. "This event highlights many interesting skills and programs that deserve supporting. Recently a Ministry for Youth Affairs was established which is supervised by the Amiri Diwan. Also there are programs in all the ministries for training contracts for youth," said Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim, Minister of Public Works and Minister of Electricity and Water, during the launch of the conference yesterday. Regarding the Ghazali Bridge project, Al- Ibrahim assured that the project was not postponed or canceled due to opening of one road. "I went personally to the location and saw the traffic jam there, so I decided to open the road to relieve the congestion.
This will not affect the execution of the whole project at all and we are continuing with the venture that has two main parts, Al-Jahra Road and Jamal Abdulnasser Road. The Ghazali Bridge will connect these parts to the Jaber Bridge. This project is slated to be over within four to five years. The main reason for opening the Ghazali was that more than 65 percent of students of the Kuwait University had been registering delays which would have later affected their marks," he explained. The government is taking care of the youth and is supporting them. "The governmental support is not limited to the young engineers only, but is meant for all young citizens. Establishment of the new Ministry for Youth Affairs is the best evidence. I consider this conference an important event, and whatever will be presented by the officials and researchers will be useful and considered for execution," concluded Al-Ibrahim.
On his part, engineer Husam Al-Kharafi, Chairman of the Kuwait Society of Engineers, highlighted the role of the Society in supporting the engineers through organizing different events and activities. "The whole world speaks about the role of youth in building their community and we hope that this conference will make recommendations to strengthen this role and make it a reality. For instance, the job opportunity for young fresh graduate engineers is very limited. In Kuwait we are missing a unified strategy to benefit from these skills, so we demand governmental support for our volunteering work. We feel sorry for some negative behavior by certain public institutions that is complicating the engineers' work, while HH the Amir is supporting us through sponsoring this event," he pointed out.
Dr. Hamed Al-Ajlan, Director of the Scientific Culture Department at the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) noted that the engineers are the people who changed the sciences originally focused on understanding the universe into applications that transferred human's life from the primitive style to the modern lifestyle and combined simplicity and complexity. "Since its establishment, the KFAS has been participating in building a base of experiences and scientific manpower through supporting the researches and spreading a culture of science in the community. KFAS is currently working on a study in cooperation with Massachusetts Institute of Technology to find new system for pricing water and power to encourage preserving water resources, and save money at the same time," stressed Al-Ajlan
© Kuwait Times 2013
