Our Young Professionals 2023
During the last general assembly of the IEC in late October 2023, the CEB was represented by two experts in the Young Professionals Programme. They were Bram Rotthier, Head of Department Energy Technology at Odisee University of Applied Sciences, and Thomas Wauters, Validation Engineer at Niko. Here's what they thought of the programme.
Bram Rotthier
"Summarizing the 2023 IEC YP workshop in four words would be “international, inspiring, online and interactive”.
Each country was allowed to select two young professionals to participate in this YP workshop. I was very happy to be selected as one of the Belgian participants. This approach resulted in a very international mix of young people. During the workshop, we were therefore immersed in a very diverse context. In discussions, it was very inspiring to interact with people with these diverse backgrounds. Not only language and culture were different, but also standardization experience. It soon became clear that work in standardization is not as standardized as you might expect different TCs have different ways of organizing work, discussing, or making decisions.
This workshop was originally planned in Egypt during the IEC general meeting but was last minute convert to on online meeting due to the conflict in the region. This is a pity because it would have been great to meet these YPs from all over the globe in person. But it was impressive how IEC succeeded to quickly organise an interactive online alternative (thank you, Aristea!). In the recurrent break-out sessions, we worked in small groups around various themes. I was divided into the group to work on a strategy to ensure that 'standards are developed to protect all genders'. The presentation of our ideas to the ISO/IEC Joint Strategic Advisory Group working on this topic was a nice ending to this YP workshop. I certainly gained experience here that will contribute to my further work in standardization."
Thomas Wauters
"Working in standardization comes with a lot of challenges and new aspects, both technical and non-technical. Each year the IEC organizes the Young Professionals program, a week-long event held alongside the General Assembly meeting, to bring together young professionals and IEC experts to learn from each other and cooperate of various standardization topics.
I had the privilege of representing Belgium during this event, to work on and learn about various standardization topics along with young professionals from 48 countries. It was a true honor to work with so many talented and interesting young people.
During this event we had the opportunity to gain first-hand experience in the workings of the IEC and engage with technical experts from around the world. The program allowed us to directly interact with IEC leaders, who were willing to answer all our questions and share their extensive knowledge and advise. We got the chance to work in small groups on a project which was close to us, specifically “When and How best to introduce students to Standardization”.
We even got to present our projects to the General assembly meeting, allowing us to actively contribute to the working of the IEC. Experts from the technical committees gave sessions about their expertise which gave us a better understanding on the how and why of the standards we use.
I would like to express my gratitude to the BEC and IEC for making this possible. Special thanks to the organizer who managed to create such an engaging and interesting event despite the last-minute change to a virtual format. I am eager to use the things I learned and contribute the field of standardization."