World debate: Re-engineering the future
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2020
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
All over the world engineers are being called on to re-purpose and solve the problems the global pandemic creates. We bring together an audience of engineers and the general public from six continents to share insights to inspire innovation worldwide.
How are engineers reinventing our world to fight the virus? What can they do to re-imagine the everyday and make life safer and easier across the globe?
Presenter Kevin Fong is joined by a panel of four leading engineers from around the world who respond to questions, comments and first-hand accounts from a global audience linked by Zoom.
The panel: Luke Leung: Director of Sustainability at international architecture and engineering firm SOM Linda Miller: Transport infrastructure engineer at the major engineering and construction firm Bechtel Rebecca Shipley: Director of UCL’s Institute for Healthcare Engineering Carlo Ratti: Director of MIT’s Senseable Lab
This is a special edition of an annual event series staged in partnership with the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, and thank you very much. I am Kevin Fong on the BBC World Service, and this is |
| 0:09.6 | the Engineers Reengineering the Future. All over the world, engineers have been called |
| 0:15.4 | upon to solve the problems created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Everything from the manufacturer |
| 0:21.3 | of ventilators and the design of personal protective equipment to addressing the shortfall in |
| 0:26.6 | intensive care capability and innovating new approaches to everyday life. Thanks to our |
| 0:32.9 | partners, the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, we have a global audience of engineers |
| 0:39.4 | with us from 22 different countries who have been involved in the fight against COVID-19. |
| 0:46.3 | Added to that, we have our public audience bringing us to a total of 32 countries in all |
| 0:52.1 | spanning six continents, united to share our knowledge and experience, and to understand |
| 0:57.9 | how it might be possible to re-engineer our world. The audience is sending us questions |
| 1:04.2 | during the live recording of this event, and as I call them up, wherever in the world |
| 1:08.7 | they happen to be, they'll join our panel via a digital link. At the heart of this |
| 1:14.1 | global event are the people who actually remake our world, those on the sharp end, putting |
| 1:20.6 | into reality what so many of us can only imagine. |
| 1:25.2 | Our engineers, Luke Leung, is Hong Kong-born and director of Sustainable Engineering at |
| 1:30.9 | Skidmore Owings and Merrill. He worked on the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and is busy designing |
| 1:37.2 | all our possible futures as leading engineer for China's massive new smart city, the ultra-green |
| 1:44.2 | Chong An. Linda Miller is from Texas and she's a civil engineer at Betchtore, specialising in |
| 1:51.3 | large-scale transport infrastructure projects around the world. She's worked on the Sydney Metro |
| 1:57.0 | and played a key role tunneling under London for the creation of Crossrail, Europe's largest |
| 2:02.6 | infrastructure project. But before we get to the future, let me introduce two engineers who've |
| 2:08.4 | been at the vanguard of the response to the coronavirus. Professor Rebecca Shipley is |
... |
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