The Young Professionals Forum (YPF) of CESA comprises Young Professionals who are passionate about the engineering industry and are interested in ensuring the sustainability and promotion of the profession.

The first series of one-day seminars, initiated by CESA, has been successfully completed. These seminars are aimed specifically at closing skills gaps in the engineering environment through empowering our youth. The underlying philosophy for these seminars is that sharing of unique experiences by senior consulting engineers will result in more informed young professionals who will make informed choices, either to grow within their firm or start their own consulting engineering firm.

“The engineering community is focussed on the development and transformation of the profession, in particular the correct implementation of the science of engineering. In this vein, CESA has established several initiatives for consulting engineers to better serve industry and society at large,” said Neresh Pather, President of CESA.

Two broad topics have been identified as follows, within the seminars to enable leaders / speakers to relate their own life stories and expertise coupled with best practices:

• Engineering, Business and Entrepreneurship
• Personal and Professional Development

It is in the spirit of the NDP Vision 2030’s theme ‘Our future - make it work’, that we are inviting Senior Consulting Engineers to invest in our youth and the development of SA’s consulting engineering skills that are critical to elimination of poverty and reduction of inequality.

Further to the success of the YP Leadership Seminars the YPF has created a series of events to be held around the country aimed at reviving inactive branches and encouraging volunteerism among young professionals.

With the theme of YP, Empowering Engineering Volunteerismthe aim is toinspire YPs that they have the power and capability to take the industry to greater heights and sustain the industry through volunteerism and professionalism for future years to come.

The event will also be an empowerment platform for future leaders. This will be achieved through a programme that will cover various leadership topics, including:

• Who, What and Why CESA and CESA YPF;
• Engineering & Volunteerism;
• How to manage your money the right way
• Road to Registration for Engineering Practitioners
• Leadership & Management
• Emotional Intelligence
• Procurement / SCM

These events are scheduled to coincide with the CESA Presidential visits to the various regions. At the end of the event, the individuals in the provinces will be given the resources and contacts to enable them to get their branches going and sustain the branch beyond their tenure.