Background
The World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) Executive Board Meeting in Paris, France (March 16-17, 2009), culminated in the acceptance of the Committee on Engineering Capacity Building (CECB) proposal to establish a Young Engineers / Future Leaders (YE/FL) Task Group.
The YE/FL was to be constituted by Young Engineers of the WFEO member countries and its council members are to be official delegates by national engineering associations of WFEO countries. CECB’s goal is the involvement of young engineers in the world’s leading activities to gain and share knowledge and experience, and to get the YE/FL abreast of global policies, which prepares them to take on future leadership roles.
At the WFEO Energy Congress in Kuwait, 2009 (“Alternative Energy Application Option or necessity?”), the CECB encouraged the WFEO member countries to organise their young engineers for participation at the first YE/FL council meeting at the WEC 2010 held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Aligning with the CECB YE/FL vision, the Executive Committees of the engineering organizations of respective national member countries nominated and sponsored young engineers to the first YE/FL task group and council meetings in Argentina, September 2010.
Young Engineers / Future Leaders (YE/FL) is a now Policy Implementation Committee (PIC) of the WFEO, gathering young engineers from the different engineering associations of WFEO members.
Vision
To be acknowledged and celebrated as the global leader for the young voices of the engineering profession.
YE/FL represents engineers at the beginning of their careers. The role is to support the vision of the WFEO with a focus on the meaningful inclusion and voices of this demographic of engineers around the world.
A key component of this is the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), part of the larger 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. These goals integrate social, economic and environmental commitments—from reducing hunger and poverty, and improving health and work, to protecting the planet—in an inclusive and transformative way. This common framework seeks to ‘leave no one behind’ in an effort to ensure the well-being of people and planet, while promoting peace, prosperity, and partnership.
Young engineers are important to this process, both as active stakeholders in achieving the SDGs, and as future leaders to carry them forward. This vision is aligned with and enables the realization of the WFEO Strategic Objective to ‘Be at the forefront of international efforts in making the Engineering profession contribute to scientifically and technologically achievable goals and innovation’.
Mission and Outcomes
To be a sustainable ecosystem that provides support, resources and a platform for young engineers in the WFEO community.
In line with its members and other WFEO committees, the WFEO – YE/FL will execute a thematic, results-oriented program for 2020-2023 which includes the following objectives:
- Create an ecosystem that nurtures and enables support and youth innovation for young engineers in the WFEO.
- Establish regular conversation between the WFEO and the young engineers.
- Provide mentorship programs between young engineers and WFEO and partner communities.
- Increase understanding of international, national, and regional awareness on the impact of globalization on young engineers.
- Address the issue of sustainability for the wellbeing of the engineering profession.
- Support the WFEO’s President’s Task Force engaging with the United Nations High Level Political Forum (the primary body tasked with assessing progress on sustainable development, in particular the SDGs and other sustainable dev. frameworks) to provide the engineering perspective on the current issues.
- Provide a space for mutual learning, networking, knowledge sharing, and growth among young engineers, founded on the basis of equity and inclusion.