It gives me great personal pleasure as Chair of the IET Northern Ireland Network to welcome you to the 2012/2013 session. I take over the role of Chair from Dr Karen Rafferty whom I would like to thank for her invaluable contribution to the IET. She has consolidated the Prestige Lecture Series making this an integral part of our yearly programme of events. Highlights of the year included presentations by Professor Kevin Warwick, University of Reading and Sir John Parker, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
The Prestige Lecture Series will be (as for the last two years) the main focus for our presentations and will cover a wide range of topics.
2012/2013 Prestige Lecture Series
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Richard Stallman- The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System– 17 September 2012
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Ralph Von Vignau – The car of the future – 13 November 2012
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Professor Blake - Machines that Learn to See - 12 February 2013
As usual we will have a
Professional Registration event in February, in which an IET Professional Advisor will give helpful advice on applying for CEng, IEng, ICT
Tech and EngTech qualifications. This year we are adding a mock interview to this event and will have a number of senior members available to provide one to one advice after the main presentation.
We will continue our work in the
Education Sector encouraging the promotion of STEM subjects to our younger generation. This year we will strengthen our links with other organisations working in this field so that we can maximise the impact of these activities and increase the number of young people we reach. I would encourage any of our members who have an interest in helping in this area to contact the committee.
Other events include:
An Engineer’s question time - a panel of key figures from academia, industry and government will answer questions relating to the latest news, matters related to science and engineering education, careers and the impact of technology on society. We look forward to you joining us in this interactive event to voice your views.
Derry is the City of Culture 2013 and we will be holding a prestige event in the North West to link in with this.
Of course our Flagship Event – the
IET NI Annual Dinner – will again take place in March 2013 in the Culloden Hotel. With around 20 companies providing corporate sponsorship and over 200 people attending in 2012, this formal dinner continues to go from strength to strength and is one of the most prestigious professional networking opportunities for companies and individuals alike. If you have not previously been to the formal, let 2013 be the first of many years of attendance!
The IET covers an extremely wide range of disciplines and as always we try to provide a wide range of events to appeal to as many members as possible. Whether you are a software developer, a hardware designer or a power engineer (or many others!) we hope to provide a range of events that will be of relevance and interest to you.
Finally, please do regularly visit the Northern Ireland website for the latest information on the programme of events and contact details of the committee and join the IET NI Community, recently created to allow greater interaction with local and technical networks.
I look forward to seeing you at the events outlined in 2012/2013.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Furey
IET NI Chair 2012-13
On behalf of the IET NI Committee
The IET for you
The IET for you 
