March 4, 2021 is the second World Engineering Day. The theme of this year’s celebration is Engineering for a Healthy Planet. It aims to feature the important contributions of engineering in the fight against Covid-19, while improving public understanding of how engineering is central to a better life for humans and for sustainable development. Prof. Dr. GONG Ke, President of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations and former President of Nankai University, delivered a speech to celebrate the day with the engineering world.

Gong said in his speech, World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development was proclaimed by UNESCO in 2019. The day offers an opportunity to highlight engineers and engineering’s achievements in sustainable development and to promote engineering’s impact on society. It helps the younger generation, especially in female groups, to promote their awareness of engineering and pursue it as a career, becoming the future leaders in engineering.

He added that World Engineering Day 2021, with the theme “Engineering for A Healthy Planet- Celebrating the UNESCO Engineering Report”, focuses on celebrating the launch of the 2nd UNESCO Engineering Report; it has been ten years since the publication of the 1^st UNESCO Engineering Report. The new report, delivered on sustainable development goals, showcases the crucial role of engineers and engineering in realizing 17 sustainable development goals, encourages cooperation among governments, industries and societies, promotes engineering innovation, and improves the capacity to use engineering to tackle the impending problems confronted by all mankind and nature; thus, everyone can have access to a peaceful, prosperous, tolerant and sustainable world.

When interviewed by Xinhua News, Gong pointed out that engineers are the ones who implement engineering, yet there is still much to be done in fostering engineering talents and reaching the goal of sustainable development, along with relevant concepts, knowledge and abilities to deal with the impacts of climate change and protect biodiversity. Besides, he thinks that there are additional missions that engineers must undertake: master professional skills such as AI and big data, which spearheaded the fourth industrial revolution, optimize the canon of ethics for engineers, while making it known and adhered to; conduct increasing cooperation among engineers from different areas of expertise, fields of study and even countries.

As the first Chinese person elected as the President of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, I hope to promote the awareness of Chinese engineers in building a community with a shared future for mankind during my term of office, and to work with engineers from other countries and regions to promote sustainable engineering development for a sustainable future for humanity, Gong added.

The Chinese Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Association for Science and Technology and other government agencies, engineering organizations, universities and research institutions in more than ten countries and regions are actively involved in the celebration of World Engineering Day 2021. There have been over 60 events around the globe posted on the website of World Engineering Day, and more will be posted in the coming days. These events, which cover important topics such as engineering for poverty alleviation, engineering for climate change, engineering and disaster mitigation and prevention, are expected to attract engineering professionals, academic scholars as well as social organizations, and will surely increase global cooperation in engineering, encourage the versatility of engineers and enhance the overall capacity of engineering.

The World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO) proposed March 4^th , the founding day of the Federation, as World Engineering Day as part of the 50^th anniversary celebrations of the Federation in 2018. The resolution received more than 80 letters of support from international engineering organizations, including the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the Chinese Association for Science and Technology (CAST), and was officially proposed by more than 40 nations including China to the Executive Committee of UNESCO. In November 2019, the 40^th UNESCO General Conference adopted a resolution to proclaim  March 4^th of every year a World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development, abbreviated as World Engineering Day.

(Reported by Renming Qiao, Translated by Meixu Wu, Edited by STEFAN SARAH DANIELLE and JianjingYun)