Articles

Considering the development imperative associated with the New South Africa alarm bells were ringing at an early stage in terms of engineering skills development and attention was finally focussed on addressing the demographic imbalance of the engineering profession.

Having served on the South African committee of the London based Institution of Structural Engineering since 1988, Allyson became its first female International Vice President of the Institution in 1997.

Allyson became the first female president of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering in the year 2000.

Allyson was recognised as a leader by Engineering News in their leadership series.

Allyson’s presidential speech considered the success factors of the early infrastructure pioneers, and she encouraged all modern-day infrastructure developers to adopt a similar stance, calling on them to ‘Go Mad’ – an acronym for ‘Go and Make a Difference’

A short story told during Allyson’s presidential speech which got the audience thinking.

The SAICE awards in 2000 was a glittering affair co-hosted with SABTACO (The South African Black Technical and Allied Careers Organisation) at which the categories were expanded to consider not only major projects, but labour based and community projects and offshore developments.

Following her successful year as SAICE president many magazines saw fit to profile Allyson’s achievements

Given her prominence in the year 2000, Allyson was regularly involved in discussions and initiatives to encourage women to enter the world of engineering.

After many years of debate and networking, the Africa Engineers Forum (AEF) was finally formalised with the signing of the AEF Protocol of Understanding in Harare in June 2001

‘Numbers and Needs : addressing imbalances in the civil engineering profession’ was launched in 2005, and highlighted the challenges associated with the loss of civil engineering professionals. For more information see ‘Publications’.

A pre-publication launch of Numbers and Needs in Local Government took place at the Africa Engineers Forum in Johannesburg in November 2007. The book offers an overview of local government, discusses the past and present, and shares ideas for the future.

Emerging from the launch of Numbers and Needs in Local Government, the Engineering News article “Rebuild don’t restructure in finding youth-and-experience balance” focussed on one of the recommendations, which was the need to transfer skills to novice engineering staff. http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/rebuild-don039t-restructure-in-finding-youthandexperience-balance-2007-12-07.

Numbers and Needs in Local Government was published in November 2007. The book addresses the shortages in civil engineering skills in local government, and suggests various interventions which should be considered to rebuild and professionalise service delivery structures. The book can be purchased from the SAICE bookshop. Contact details Tel 011-805 5947 or email Angelene Aylward at angelene@saice.org.za.

As a result of the JIPSA initiative (Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition) and enhanced career guidance, the numbers of engineering students entering tertiary institutions had increased dramatically, but concerns about the capacity of tertiary institutions and industry to adequately educate, train and develop tomorrows engineering professionals were expressed. http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/surging-interest-in-engineering-but-now-a-gaping-lecturing-and-mentoring-hole-2008-01-18.

Engineering skills were the subject of a Summit held in October 2012 at which Allyson outlined the poor throughput rates of engineers and engineering technicians and technologists from universities and universities of technology respectively. http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/funding-model-for-engineering-faculties-to-be-reviewed-2012-10-16.