The World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) General Assembly and the World Engineering Forum 2017 was held in Rome, Italy from November 26 to December 2, 2017. IWHR’s Vice President Peng Jing attended the conference and was actively involved in the discussions on disaster risk management.
At the General Assembly on December 1, Prof. Gong Ke, President of Nankai University, was elected President of WEFO through intense competition, becoming the first Chinese scientist to win the position.
The World Federation of Engineering Organizations is an international, non-governmental organization representing the engineering profession worldwide. Founded in 1968 by a group of regional engineering organizations, under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) in Paris, WFEO brings together national engineering organizations from over 93 nations and represents some 20 million engineers from around the world. The organization now owns 10 technical committees namely Energy, Education, Anti-corruption, Women Engineering, Innovative Technologies, Disaster Risk Management, Information and Communication, Engineering Capacity Building, Engineering and the Environment, and Young Engineers Future Leaders, with 11 affiliated international organization in the field.
China Association for Science and Technology, becoming a member of WEFO in 1981, has been actively participating WEFO activities and recommending Chinese scientists to the technical committees of WFEO. Vice President Peng Jing is now a national representative of Water-Climate Change Disaster Risk Management branch under the technical committee of Disaster Risk Management. During the conference, Prof. Peng Jing introduced China’s experience in water-related infrastructure construction and management, improvement of urban and rural resilience in response to disasters, and also specific practices of China in flood control and reduction systems, sponge cities building, rural drinking water security enhancement and so on, and got positive feedback from the participants.
World Engineering Forum is a biennial conference. With the overarching theme of “Safeguarding Humankind’s Heritage, the Great Challenge for Engineers”, the WEF 2017 calls together representatives from about 100 nations to discuss sustainable concept, innovative methods and practical experiences in engineering. Chinese delegates delivered speeches on both the plenary session and parallel sessions by sharing China’s experiences and concepts in green city construction, internet engineering, bicycle sharing, engineering education as well as capacity building and women engineering, etc., offering advices and suggestions in the spirit of partnership for a better engineering future.
