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IFEES-GEDC COVID-19 Call to Action

WAYS to GET INVOLVED! 
Points of Contact and Champions

Please note when sending emails to get involved, please add in the email subject line the tag “IFEES-GEDC-COVID-19.”

  1. Education, Research and Employability:

Existing education models are no longer valid. As institutions and educators, we need to reengineer ourselves. We must change our mindsets in existing disciplines, and be creative in identifying new disciplines and new methods of learning for the future. This includes building true “without-borders” cyber-physical educational infrastructures. Faculty need to create new content, work in R&D, seek new opportunities, and innovate to address current and post COVID-19 needs. We also need to advise students and give them hope as they continue their programs of study or enter the global workforce. Academic administrators need to make their respective universities more nimble and flexible. Educational systems will look different by the end of this year. The institutions willing to change will survive; many will disappear. Finally, students have the biggest stake and should participate in creating the new norm for themselves, their peers and the next generation.

  • Peace Engineering Minor/Certificate Program: Join us in creating content, building case studies and collecting data for Peace Engineering minor/certificate programs and/or for aligning traditional engineering curricula with peace outcomes. This effort is well aligned with industry micro-degrees leading to stackable credentials.
  • Global Peace Labs: In collaboration with industry, we are creating a global network of virtual laboratories for teaching and research.
  • Student Internships & Projects: Students need internships, projects and R&D activities to graduate. With social distancing required for COVID-19, we can make these interactions virtual and impactful. These times are a great opportunity to develop new content and ways of working together, perform R&D and spinoff Peace Technology efforts.
  • Employability: What will a new workforce look like for engineers and entrepreneurs and how do we help our students and graduates find their place? Educators need to address challenges with the employability of engineering students in a post-COVID-19 world: Are academics preparing students to be well-equipped with knowledge and skills that the industry will need in the post-pandemic world? What will be the industry needs? Will those radically change from pre-pandemic needs? Will the industry change so rapidly over the next few years that engineers will need to re-skill and up-skill themselves continuously? Will academia be able to prepare the students for a life of continuous learning? We would like to convene a small group of our members who will critically assess –
    • Looking for Champions!!!
    • the needs that industry will require from the students in entry level and later,
    • how industry and academia collaboratively can develop curriculum to address such needs, and
    • how academia can prepare students for lifetime learning.
    • Based on the outcome of the assessment, IFEES and GEDC will prepare a framework for implementation at universities worldwide.

Points of Contact: Hans J. Hoyer and Aliki Pappas

2. Infrastructure

We are calling all IFEES and GEDC members and nonmembers to act now. Start global projects in analyzing our local telecommunications, energy grids, healthcare systems and their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s help design new, more resilient and accessible infrastructures. How are engineering programs across the world engaging to assist first responders and healthcare workers/providers? How effective is your current infrastructure? 

3. Data Collection, Analysis and Prediction
Let’s all become the new sensors to collect data, process, report, predict, share and influence. It is time to develop an active, cohesive, and influential academic-industry-government-multilateral organizations partnership. How is the pandemic affecting diversity, human rights, economies and political systems?

Calls for Action from other Organizations

National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine The COVID-19 crisis has placed the world in extraordinary circumstances. In addition to the medical and scientific expertise that is being brought to bear on this challenge, engineers too can bring their knowledge and skills as well as systems approaches and an innovative mindset to combat the contagion and its impact.  Call for Engineering Action on the COVID-19 Crisis

Project ECHO During this time of global crisis, ECHO model has a special role to play in quickly helping to connect experts and frontline healthcare professionals. To help our partners navigate the various ways the ECHO Institute is helping, we have created numerous resource lists of our COVID-19 activity around the world.  Project Echo COVID-19 Response

PeaceX The PeaceX Global Research Group is a coordinated, collaborative  network of universities and university students who are discovering, recording, organizing and interpreting dynamic behavioral data across multiple domains and disciplines.

IPODIA Learn across disciplinary, institutional, physical and cultural boundaries when you participate in iPodia, an interactive classroom without borders. Take part in the changing the landscape of 21st century education that connects you to students across the globe at other leading universities via teleconferencing technology and group trips to other countries. (Winner of the Duncan Fraser Award for Global Excellence in Engineering Education from IFEES in 2015.

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