This first installment of the online Lunchtime lecture series was held on the 9th February 2021 and marked the beginning of a series which will take place online every 2nd Tuesday of the month throughout 2021. The series aims to make education and training available and accessible to all, in the form of monthly 'bite-size' trainings. The series, which is co-organised by the ITACET Foundation, ITA-CET Committe and ITA, works with the ITA Working Groups and Committees to showcase current work and experience from the top engineers in the field.

This first session centered on "From rock mechanics to drill and blast" and gathered a total of 196 participants from all over the world. Participants logged on from Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ghana and Iceland to name but a few countries - in total a massive 47 countries were represented by participants!

Professor Robert Galler (ITA-CET Committee, ITACET Foundation & WG19) introduced the series as well as the ITACET Foundation and the ITA-CET Committee before going on to give the first presentation on Optimised advance in conventional tunnelling due to high-tech drill & blast. Following on from this came Eric Lüpfert from Sandvik who wpoke about Intelligent Underground Rock Excavation and after this Mark Ganster from Austin Europe gave a presentation on Smooth and accurate tunnel advance due to new blasting techniques. To finish the session a Question and Answer round was held and the lecturers answered a total of 15 questions from the audience!

The Foundation sincerely thanks the lecturers for their hard work and time that went into preparing for and participating in this session, which was a resounding success.

The recording of the session was made available for all those participants that registered for the session.

Still image from the episode - Eric Lupfert presenting