ICE review

Linda Miller of Bechtel has started delivering ICE’s 12th Brunel International Lecture series. The touring lectures began in London on 12 June 2018 and, over the next 16 months, Linda will visit other cities in the UK and worldwide, including Auckland, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Vancouver and Cape Town.

Challenging the industry on the future of transport, her lecture covers the demands of the next generation and makes a call to action to leaders and engineers involved in transport infrastructure around the world.

Linda reveals six ‘inescapable’ ways of working required to deliver modern transport mega-projects. She also discusses how transport projects can help improve people’s economic prospects, deliver social justice and contribute to solving environmental problems.

Linda is currently a construction director on the Sydney Metro, Australia’s biggest public transport project. She was previously project manager on the Crossrail Farringdon station and Connaught tunnel projects in London, the latter involving bringing a 135-year-old disused tunnel back to life.

All lecture dates can be found at www.ice.org.uk/events/brunel-international-lecture-series.

This year’s Smeaton Lecture took place at ICE’s headquarters in London on 17 July 2018. Covering the impact of metros on the world’s great cities, it was delivered by past ICE president Professor Tony Ridley and Richard Anderson, managing director of the Railway Technology Strategy Centre at Imperial College London.

Named after John Smeaton, one of the founders of our profession, and supported by the Smeatonian Society, the lecture covered themes from the history and development of civil engineering. In the spirit of ICE’s 200th anniversary, this year’s lecture brought out lessons learned from the past that are essential for twenty-first-century civil engineers.

Tony drew on his own experiences and achievements in metro engineering over the course of his career. He was the first director general of the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive, after which he led the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway Corporation and London Underground before joining the board of Eurotunnel.

Richard spoke about the growth and beneficial impact of metros that serve diverse communities, using examples from benchmarking undertaken for metro systems worldwide.

An edited recording of the lecture is available on the ICE website www.ice.org.uk/eventarchive.

ICE has published the programme and confirmed speakers for the Global Engineering Congress, which is taking place on 22–26 October 2018 at One Great George Street in London. Together with the World Federation of Engineering Organisations, ICE aims to gather the worldwide engineering community at the event to agree a global response to deliver the UN’s sustainable development goals.

Speakers include Hartwig Schaefer, vice president of global themes at the World Bank; Danielle Gaillard Picher, director of policy and programmes at the World Water Council; and Michèle Blom, director general at the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment in the Netherlands.

The 5-day programme of lectures, panel discussions and workshops will tackle topics including governance, security and standards for artificial intelligence technologies; robotics and the future of work; resilience against natural disasters; engineering answers to water scarcity and its economic impact; and increasing the economic viability of renewable energy sources.

For further details and to book, visit www.ice.org.uk/events/global-engineering-congress.