Sustainable Manufacturing in China

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), Malaysia Branch, Young Members Section, is holding the Asia Oceana presentation competition “Speak out for engineering” at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia (see figure).

The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) will host an internal competition on Monday, 02 March 2009 to select a participant for the above mentioned competition finals in Kuala Lumpur. For enquiries regarding the internal competition please contact Dr Chan Kuan Yoong who is organising the event on behalf of the IMechE. I am joining the event as one of the judges, and I am hoping to see some really interesting presentations.

Background:

“The competition is organised annually by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Regions/Branches. It was originally established in 1964 to challenge young engineers to prove that they could ‘communicate effectively’, which is still an important area for today’s developing engineers. In 1977 Her Majesty gave permission for the competition to be known as ‘The Queen’s Silver Jubilee Competition‘. The Competition has been adapted over the course of time to allow for greater articipation, but the original theme of ‘communicating effectively’ still remains the emphasis of the competition and in 2004 changed its name to ‘Speak Out for Engineering‘ Presentation Competition.” (http://www.imeche.org/industries/prizeaward/Speak_Out_for_Engineering)

Today the Engineering Division was visited by a film crew, accompanied by Tim Utton, deputy director of communications,  Nottingham, UK (see picture above, considering its quality it does not look like I have got a future in the film or photography business). They were filming the engineering area and our newly fitted teaching laboratories. Furthermore, they interviewed Dr Kuan Yoong Chan, our Head of Division.

According to the communications department the filming aims at producing an overseas DVD for the University of Nottingham “to promote and celebrate the research, teaching and learning taking place on the China and Malaysia campuses“

Personally I was not involved in this event, but I managed to sneak in and take a few snapshots whilst the crew was filming Kuan Yoong. Afterwards I became an interviewer myself “grilling” him about how he felt being questioned by the film team. Here is what Kuan Yoong said:

“It was a nice experience to be interviewed in front of the camera, I just hope I have covered all the relevant points for Engineering. The highlight of the interview was when I made the point about China being the factory of the world, which we all know. Let’s hope next time they come to film us, sustainability or sustainable manufacturing will start to be a part of that world factory.“

As of 01 February Professor  Roger Woods is the new Provost and CEO of UNNC.

The Professor of German said: “The concept behind the University – matching Nottingham’s expertise in teaching and research to China’s needs – has turned out to be exactly right. I’m very much looking forward to the challenge of leading The University of Nottingham Ningbo into its next phase of development, and of working with colleagues here to ensure the campus goes from strength to strength in the years to come.” (http://www.nottingham.edu.cn/news.php?n=267)

The first week of the new semester has just started. However, I would like to look back to the end of the last teaching period: As part of the 1st year Engineering Communication and IT skills – course we organised a poster cometition for our students. They put a lot of time and effort into the design of their posters, accordingly it has been extremely difficult to decide on the winners.

How does the poster competition relate to sustainable manufacturing in China?

All three winning posters deal with sustainability related topics. Admittedly, it is debatable how much they relate to sustainable manufacturing in China directly. Anyway, as they say, “a picture says more than a thousand words.” I suggest having a look:

1. Green Roofs – Research in the 21. Century

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to University of Nottingham Ningbo Weblogs.

Due to technical reasons the Sustainable Manufacturing in China – blog has been moved from its original address to here.

All posts have been transferred successfully using the wordpress export/import function. Just some minor casualties, like lost tags…also, I have to reinstall the original widgets (the ClustrMaps widget for example starts from zero, hence the empty map) and upload some of the pictures manually. The old page will not be maintained anymore.

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