KATHMANDU: Advanced College of Engineering and Management (ACEM) hosted a webinar in partnership with the United States Embassy in Kathmandu titled “Post Covid Prospects in Engineering and Education. Engineering, Education and the Pandemic: Where is the World Headed?”

Dr Henri P Gavin, Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, USA and Dr Bevlee Watford, Professor of Engineering Education in the College at Virginia Tech, USA, were the speakers in the webinar, which was moderated by Karl Rogers, Cultural Affairs Officer at the US Embassy in Kathmandu.

The webinar covered the trends in education, engineering and discussions on the influence the current global crisis might have on both. Rogers highlighted the contributions of the experts in the USA during their long professional career besides connecting Nepal and US in educational exchanges, according to ACEM.

Chairperson of ACEM and President of HISSAN, Ramesh Silwal, highlighting how COVID-19 will enhance the proactiveness and problem solving capacity of people along with the boom in engineering sectors in Nepal, talked about the current pandemic situation, and how the gap between haves and have-nots will increase owing to the present crisis.

Dr Watford spoke about how international students have plummeted due to COVID-19 as embassies are closed, visas are not issued.

Likewise, Dr Gavin said that engineering is a problem solving field. He added that best decisions can lead to bad outcome but that can teach us problem solving. He also talked about the value of inclusion and how talent has no race, no gender, and is not to just a certain group of people. Excluding people is loss of ideas he said, as far as bringing students from diverse parts of the world is concerned.

Discussions on how COVID-19 has shifted the nature of network, the importance of studying engineering now, planning for future classes, and why universities need to be more inclusive were among the highlights of the webinar.

Director, ACEM, Kapil Dev Regmi concluded the hour long webinar by saying how the pandemic has taught people new way of living where most people are left to adapt to changes.