My Engineers Blog

The Royal Academy of Engineering has Announced an Engineer and broadcaster, Roma Agrawal as the winner of the Academy's most prestigious awards in recognition of her tireless efforts to promote careers in the profession. The Rooke Award for public promotion of engineering, named after industrialist and past Academy President Sir Denis Rooke, honours people who have brought engineering to life for the public. Previous winners include TV engineering experts Professor Danielle George and Professor Mark Miodownik FREng. Roma will receive her award at the Academy Awards Dinner in London on Thursday 29 June. Roma, a 33 year-old chartered structural engineer, exudes enthusiasm for engineering and manages to combine broadcasting and promotional work with her full-time role as an associate director at AECOM. Having studied physics at the University of Oxford, she decided to do an MSc in structural engineering at Imperial College London, which set her on course for a career in c

The Federal Government has vowed to render operators of electricity generating sets in rural areas “jobless” by meeting the energy demands of rural communities through sustainable renewal energy solution. Acting President Yemi Osinbajo stated this at the inauguration of Nigerian Renewable Energy Roundtable on Tuesday in Abuja. According to him, already the government through the Rural Electrification Agency is developing an energy database that will show community locations and energy demand profiles. Osinbajo narrated how the provision of solar energy to Wuna village in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) rendered the only operator of electricity generating sets jobless. “I was in Wuna to see it for myself. For the first time in their existence, the village now has running water, solar powered. The school has power and the school hall is now used as a community hall in the evenings. Each home has four points of light. “Children can now stay up and do some studying at night. Ma

I write this from Victoria Island, Lagos where I also checked out Terra Kulture after the PR that was done for it by no less than Richard Quest of CNN. I didn’t sample their jollof rice though. I just bought a book and moved on. I wondered what Quest would have thought as he was driven to and from Tiamiyu Savage Street where Terra Kulture is located. Or generally as he journeyed around the ‘posh’ areas of Lagos during his visit. I’m not quite sure he went to the ‘rougher’ zones. But what we call ‘posh’ here is called ‘shitty’ elsewhere. His verdict, which needs constant revisiting and self-reminders, is that Nigeria is a place that is governed by one ethos; “If you can buy it, why build it?” If we were wise we would not forget that statement in a hurry. We could also extend it to “If we can buy a new one, why maintain it?” You see, the English people are a deep lot. The training received by people like Quest is totally different from what we have here or what we buy from abroad. Tha

Germany and Austria have voiced sharp criticism of the latest U.S. sanctions against Moscow because they could affect European businesses involved in piping Russian natural gas to Europe. The Republican-led Senate voted Wednesday to slap new sanctions on key sectors of Russia’s economy and individuals over its interference in the U.S. election campaign and its aggression in Syria and Ukraine. Austria’s Chancellor Christian Kern and Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a joint statement Thursday that “we can’t accept … the threat of illegal and extraterritorial sanctions against European companies.” They accuse the U.S. of trying to help American natural gas suppliers at the expense of their European rivals. The two officials said: “Europe’s energy supply is a matter for Europe, and not for the United States of America!” By The Associated Press

In a collaborative effort to harness the vast benefits of information and communication technology to transform Ondo State technologically and create employment for youths in Nigeria, the Federal University of Technology, Akure, and the Ondo State government, in collaboration with Emerging Communities Techup Initiative (Akure Techup), has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the implementation and development of the Tech Hub Project in Ondo State. The Tech Hub, whose construction has started, is domiciled in FUTA.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the bridges are in Bokani village in Makera Tegina road and Tatabu village. The bridges which link the north with the west collapsed between June 4 and June 11 after heavy rainfall. NAN also report that a rail line that links Western and Northern parts of the country also collapsed as a result of flood from heavy rainfall. Mr Jonathan Vatsa, the state Commissioner for Information, told newsmen shortly after inspecting the bridges and the rail line that the federal roads in the state have become dead traps. “There is no guarantee of life on these roads and therefore, on behalf of the acting Gov. Alhaji Ahmed Ketso, Niger state as a government thereby declared a state of emergency on federal roads in the state. Road users should henceforth be very careful and take precautionary measures while traveling on the roads as anything can happen. The federal roads in the state are not longer safe. I advise drivers of trucks and artic

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission on Monday threatened to dissolve the boards of the electricity distribution companies over their continued poor performance since they took over the successor firms to the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria more than three years ago. This is coming as the Federal Government has told the firms to improve their services if they must avoid losing their customers or running out of business once the generation companies start selling electricity to eligible customers.  The Commissioner, Engineering Performance and Monitoring, NERC, Prof. Frank Okafor, said at the 16th power sector stakeholders’ meeting, “A lot of the Discos have not done well in metering people. They committed to certain level of metering every year, but they have not done that. “We are looking at very heavy sanctions, including calling off the boards of some Discos and replacing the boards. It is going to be as bad as that very soon because NERC has a right, just l

The Council for the Regulation of Engineering profession in Nigeria, COREN has appointed former Osun State deputy governor and two-term Senator, Senator Iyiola Omisore, as a resource person in the accreditation visitation team to the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Effurun, Delta State. In a letter signed by the Registrar of the Council, W. Kamila Maliki, Dr. Omisore, a COREN certified engineer, is expected to serve as a resource person to the visiting accreditation panel. He is required to cover the undergraduate programme of Mechanical Engineering at the institution. The team is expected to stay for five days at the university, after which they will turn up their reports. Engr Omisore has in the recent past been canvassing for the need for governments at all levels to embrace appropriate models in Public Private Partnerships (PPP) initiative. In November last year, Omisore was a guest speaker at the Nigerian Society of Engineers Annual Conference and African Enginee

The Nigerian Society of Engineers, Ikeja Branch 3-days programme tagged "Project Skill 2017" has come and gone. But the impact and memory will forever remain fresh in the minds of all those who participated. The programme which was organised in conjunction with Young Engineers Edutainment Nigeria Limited lived up to the billing and also provide opportunity for the high school students to have a glimpse of AI through Robotics.  Project Skills, is an annual event organised by the NSE Ikeja Branch for secondary school students as part of its "catch them young" programme and also to promote innovation among the school students.  The Chairman of NSE Ikeja Branch,Engr Akin Akintola said the programme was "designed to groom the young students in science, engineering and mathematics, which he said is the bedrock for infrastructural development in any nation." According to him, if there is no development in STEM, the nation’s development will be a mira

The President of United States of America, Donald Trump has delivered on his vow to withdraw America from Paris Agreement. The President cited his concerns that the deal, which was named after the city in France where it was agreed upon and signed, was unfair to American interests. However, the President also suggested that he would seek to renegotiate a new deal. The President said; “In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.” The news means the US joins a very, very small list of countries which will not be supporting the accord. In fact, only two other countries are on it: Nicaragua and Syria. Of those two, Nicaragua actually declined its support because it felt the agreement was not, in fact, strong

After a successful mission studying the rings and moons of Jupiter and the landing of the Mars rover, NASA is turning its eyes towards the sun. In a release posted to its website, NASA explained that a solar probe is set to launch in the summer of 2018. Solar Probe Plus already has a nifty countdown clock on its website, so you can plan accordingly around the historic launch, which should happen between July 31 and August 19, 2018, if everything goes according to plan. After launching, the probe will begin its exploration, zooming past Venus and Mercury on its way to orbit the sun. When it arrives at the sun, the Solar Probe Plus will make itself at home four million miles above the sun's surface. According to NASA, from there, the probe will "explore the sun's outer atmosphere and make critical observations." Scientists are already loading up the Solar Probe Plus with advanced tech. The Energetic Particle Instrument-Low Energy (EPI-Lo), is the first thing to get