I am pleased the Foundation organized a very successful Training Session in Kuala Lumpur last month with the Malaysian’s representatives to ITA, as you will read in the Newsletter.

The topic of the Training Session was on Tunnel Design; six lecturers, all ITA Executive Council representatives, delivered fifteen lectures during two days on the main principles for Tunnel Design, both for Conventional and Mechanized Construction methods; the Session gathered more than sixty participants coming from the whole Tunnelling family in Malaysia.

It was also the opportunity for the Foundation to invite two participants, one from Vietnam and one from Cambodia to participate; both were very interested and grateful to the Foundation.



The comments received from  the participants were very positive and challenging for the Foundation; the Foundation understood that it is now time to prepare  longer training courses (5-day for example) in order to inform the participants more in detail  for topics like Tunnel Design.

The Foundation received also the request to prepare new training sessions in Asia, especially in countries like Cambodia and Vietnam. We will do our best to answer to these requests in these countries but also in China, Singapore, Thailand, etc.



I am also pleased that this Training Session gave opportunity to ITA officers to meet participants from countries like Cambodia and Pakistan and to talk with them about the possibility for these countries to become ITA Member nations in a near future. It shows clearly that the ITA and the Foundation are complementary and can work together in a “win-win” situation.

Eng. Abdullah. Al-Mogbel

ITACET Foundation President

Since I was elected the president of ITA, I have visited several countries and/or member nations, which include Argentina, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, Hungary, China, Thailand, Malaysia, etc. What I found from my visits to most of these member nations is that the tunnelling and underground structures are booming worldwide nowadays, especially in Asia and in South America. Reflecting this booming, some member nations are significantly in lack of experienced tunnelling engineers since they did not have many tunnelling projects beforehand.

Recently, the Institution of Engineers Malaysia, who is the ITA member nation of Malaysia, held an International Conference on Tunnelling and Trenchless Technology, and I was invited as a keynote lecturer as well as as a moderator in the Open Forum with the title of “Future Challenges in Tunnelling & Underground Space Development”. During the Forum, one gentleman among the audiences, who has been working in Singapore so many years, stated that he can clearly recognize that nowadays young generations are not so much interested in engineering fields so that the quality of engineers is becoming lower and lower and tunnelling engineers are not exception.

This phenomenon is, in my opinion, universal; most smart youngsters are not so much interested in engineering fields any more. Their first choice is among law school, business school, and/or medical school. What makes the problem worse is that courses on tunnelling are offered only in few universities around the world. Except for some universities who have Master’s program on tunnelling, the chance to be trained as a tunnelling engineer in university is rare.

The two issues I raised above clearly demonstrate the need and importance of ITACET Foundation which was founded to play key roles in training and education of young mole engineers along with ITA CET (ITA Committee on Education and Training) which provides technical supports to the Foundation.

I, myself have tried to participate as many training sessions as possible as a lecturer. The first one I took part in as a lecturer was in Buenos Aires; the second one in Bangkok; and the third one in Kuala Lumpur. What I found from the three training sessions was that all the attendees were so keen to lectures from the beginning to end. They were so eager to learn tunnelling technology from the internationally well-known experts. It is the duty of the Foundation to help each and every member nation who is willing to hold their training session by providing them well-known tunnelling experts as their lecturers.

Prof. In-Mo Lee is the current President of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association

In-Mo Lee, Ph.D., PE

President of ITA-AITES

COMING SOON:

CONVENTIONAL ROCK TUNNELLING AND SPRAYED CONCRETE TECHNOLOGY
Training session Helsinki, Finland, 20 - 21 May 2011

The Foundation is organizing the annual training session for young professionals at the occasion of the ITA World Tunnelling Congresses in Helsinki.

The corresponding programme,  was prepared in coordination with the Tunnelling Association of Finland and with the ITA-CET Committee.

This training course is for relatively skilled professionals. Main topic covered: "Holistic approach for use of wet sprayed concrete for rock support and permanent lining in rapid conventional tunnelling and underground construction".

The Foundation is accepting applications of young professionals, in order to select some to be invited to the WTC 2011 Training Session.

If you are interested send your resume and a motivation letter to secretariat@foundation.itacet.org
The final program has been published 10th of April and is available as Pdf Download>>

Registration and detailed information about the Training session and the ITA-AITES WTC11 Helsinki are available on the WTC11 website >>

COMING SOON:

SOFTWARE APPLICATION IN TUNNELLING
Training session Hagenberg, Austria 14 - 15 July 2011

The Seminar on Software Application in Tunnelling for comprehensive education and training of Tunnel Engineers, organised by the Research Institute for Symbolic Computation (RISC) and Softwarepark Hagenberg with the sponsorship of ITACET Foundation, focuses on the present state-of-the-art Software-controlled Methods in virtually all fields of Tunnel Engineering and Construction.

Planned activities include invited presentations, poster sessions, vendor exhibits and software demonstrations.

Download Conference Folder >>

Early registration at a discounted rate applies until June 1, 2011. Please register today!

NEW LEADERSHIP AT THE INTERNATIONAL ROAD FEDERATION

Eng. Abdullah A. Almogbel, President of the ITACET Foundation, has been elected Chairman of the International Road Federation in Washington.

To know more

follow this link to the IRF web site>>

“TUNNELS AND UNDERGROUND STRUCTURES, from design to operation"

At the initiative of the AFTES (French Tunnelling and Underground Space Association), INSA Lyon (French Technical University - Lyon), ENTPE (French National School of State Public Works) in partnership with AFTES and the Tunnels Study Centre (CETU) created the Specialized Master “TUNNELS AND UNDERGROUND STRUCTURES, from design to operation “.

The master is designed to meet the high expectations of the French and international market by training specialists in design, construction and operation of underground structures.

It aims to give engineers with generic formation in civil engineering a specialized training, allowing them a rapid evolution toward positions of responsibility, whether in business, project management or operation management.
This Specialized Master received accreditation from the “Conference des Grandes Ecoles” in February 2011.
It also has the label "international formation” from the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA / ITA) and the support of the French “Fédération Nationale des Travaux Publics” (FNTP).

Contact & Organization: Richard Kastner, Professor Emeritus at INSA Lyon, Denis Branque, Senior Researcher at the Masters ENTPE Leaders.

To know more read the short official presentation >>>

"TUNNELLING AND BORING MACHINES"

The Politecnico di Torino released its new edition of its postgraduate Master Course in "Tunnelling and Tunnel Boring Machines"

Read the first announcement here >>

More information on the Politecnico di Torino website >>  

New Scholarship criteria available.

We inform you that the Foundation may help financially students from emerging countries for all or part of the scholarship for this master course.

Read our Scholarship criteria for more information >>

TRAINING SESSION ON " PRINCIPLES FOR TUNNEL DESIGN"  KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA 27 - 28 February 2011

At the request of the “The Institute of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) and Tunneling & Underground Space Technical Division(TUSTD)” the Foundation prepared a two days training session on "Principles of Tunnel Design”.

This Training session  aimed to provide design and construction elements to young professionals related to the best practice of tunnel design.

More than sixty persons attended the training session, both from the academical and corporate world,  Including  two young engineers, VŨ MINH TUẤN, MSc from Vietnam and Dr. Lim Soktay from Cambodia, invited by the Foundation.

Six lecturers from ITA-AITES, (L to R on the image bellow) Dr. Harald Wagner, Expert to the ITA-AITES Executive Council, Professor In-Moo Lee. ITA-AITES President, Mrs. Amanda Elioff, Animateur, ITA-AITES Working Group 20 and member of the ITA-AITES executive Council, Dr. Suchatvee, President of the Thaïland Underground and Tunneling Group, Prof. Markus Thewes, ITA-AITES First Vice President, Mr. Soren Eskesen, ITA-AITES Vice President gave a total of sixteen lectures.

Sessions topics were:

• Introduction and Overview on Tunnel DesignTunneling Methods
• General Aspects of Tunnel Design
• Conventional Tunnelling
• Mechanized Tunnelling

Full programm is available for download >>

Finland (Helsinki): Training session on Conventional rock tunnelling and sprayed concrete technology 20 - 21 May 2011

Austria (Hagenberg): Training Session on Numerical Simulation 14 -15 July 2011.
To know more read the Flyer >> or get more information on the event website >>

China (Shanghai): Training Session on Safety during operation 12-13 November 2011

Cambodia (Phnom Penh: Workshop on Tunneling and Underground Space Technology 14 December 2011