Engineering Excellence Crosses Borders

If anyone is asked whether ASME is a professional organization with international reach, the answer should be an enthusiastic "yes."

I get e-mail notes in response to this column every month. I am somewhat surprised to find that almost half of them come from outside the United States, Africa being the most common. This indicates to me that engineers in other countries are interested in what ASME International has to offer and are hungry for more.

How can ASME members within the structure of a professional society embrace this need further?

The first way is to recognize that this need and desire exist. The second is to recognize that we all have something to learn from each other as well as something to offer in return.

As the world becomes an increasingly interdependent place, engineers worldwide will need to embrace this interaction and interdependence. It has been a long time since engineers were afforded the luxury of designing and building items for only one locale. Even stationary and capital works like buildings and highways have international components and interactions. The technical decision made in one country will have consequences in others.

Additionally, no single country has a monopoly on excellence in engineering. Every country and locale has engineering capabilities at the leading edge of technology. Some of these may not be so obvious, especially when looking at developing countries that are considered by many to be technologically challenged.

For years, there was a technological wall between the West — the United States and Western Europe — and the East — the former USSR and its allies. Now that this wall is down, engineers can talk freely to each other and can identify areas where technology from both sides of this political divide can be used cooperatively. By cooperating, these engineers are capable of developing and implementing products that combine the best of the technological capabilities.

Last month, I mentioned my new professional position with a startup biomedical company. This company, though small, is an international one. We are working with a joint venture partner in Russia to bring needle-free injection systems to the world marketplace.

Yes, needle-free injection systems have been around for years — they were first commercialized in the United States in the 1950s — but they have not replaced the conventional needle and syringe. There are several reasons why they have never successfully competed with the conventional needle and syringe, including pathogen transfer concerns and cost. We believe that our Russian partners have some technologies that will change this situation.

This is just one example of how the entrepreneurial engineer can make the world a better place. I am sure that there are lots of others. I'd like to hear about them and would be willing to highlight them in future columns.

— Niel Leon
Committee on Engineering
Entrepreneurship
leonn@asme.org

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