Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Engineers for the Americas E for A’s

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Four Leg Table One of the problem of our countries is that the four legs of the table (Government-Companies-Professional Institutions-Academia) over we must build economic development do not go in the same direction With different goals of each leg, this table will be unstable Universities wants to make research on problems that local companies don’t have For that reason local companies hires services from foreign companies As a consequence, Universities do not receive support from local companies for research Government and Professional Institutions do not have an idea to help solving this situation That is why we don’t generate competitiveness

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Lima Declaration Is a document sign by almost all the Ministers and high authorities of science and technology in November Recognizes that: –“science, technology, engineering, innovation, and education are fundamental to promote the integral development of the countries of the Americas”. –scientific capacity building and the exchange of technologies are priority areas of action of the Strategic Plan for Partnership for Development of CIDI In its Action Plan mentions “Build local engineering capacity to create knowledge that ensures the solution of local needs and opens the chance to compete for global opportunities”

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Goal Chain of E for A’s Accreditation Continues Improvement Process Quality Assurance Capacity Building Sustainable Economic Development Goverment Companies Academia Alignment of Goals Professional Institutions

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Sustainable Economic Development Because it increase prosperity to people Because it creates a culture of freedom in countries But we need to develop competitiveness to achieve a sustainable economic development

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Capacity Building There are many factors that contributes to economic development One main factor is build professional capacity Professional Capacity Building generates better professionals Better professionals can identify and solve local problems If professionals do this, they will not need to migrate If professionals don’t migrate, countries will not loose their main resource, its people and talent This way countries doesn’t loose competitiveness

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Quality Assurance To have better professionals we must assure quality of professional education That includes licensing of professionals for practice (also independent practice)

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Continues Improvement Process We need to increase the probability of having better graduates to became better professionals We need to assure the quality of professionals So we need a continues improvement process that includes feedback from hiring companies, graduates and all constituents

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Accreditation The method to have a continues improvement process is to include an accreditation criteria with the participation of third parties who made the evaluation

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Alignment of Goals I we align goals of universities and local companies the table will get stable Universities generates competitiveness Local companies generates competitiveness Capacity building helps to align the goals of each leg Accreditation is the tool for Capacity Building Government and Professional Institutions must provide a suitable mean to connect Academia and Companies goals.

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Engineers for the Americas Engineers for the Americas (E for A’s) is a task force integrated, among others, by: –The Western Hemisphere Initiative (WHI), a group of accreditation agencies in USA (ABET), Canada (CCPE-CEAB), Mexico (CACEI) and Peru (ICACIT) –High Tech enterprises as Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Texas Instruments –The Organization of American States (OAS) –The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) –The World Federation of Engineer Organizations (WFEO) –Experts and volunteers from Americas universities

Enrique E. AlvarezICACIT - WHIE for A’s Engineers for the Americas Its purpose is to make understand countries and its enterprises and institutions in the Americas, the great impact in creating economic development that engineering capacity building and quality assurance in education has, and help to implement accreditation organizations as the tool that can assure quality in engineering careers through the adequate feedback from the main constituents and build capacity in engineering professionals.