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Irish engineers are incredibly creative thinkers and innovators, but it's a big leap going from innovator to entrepreneur, and taking an idea you might have to market.

Today we hear from a prominent engineer with a fascinating career history, which took her from aeronautical engineering into the biomedical space. We'll be finding out how she looks at problems, overcomes obstacles, where she sees innovation and opportunity, and getting some great advice for any engineers who are thinking of launching their own business.

Our guest is CEO of Altratech and the Assistant Director of the Stokes Research Institute at University of Limerick, Dr. Tara Dalton.

THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT

  • Transitioning through different disciplines of engineering
  • The benefits of working within interdisciplinary teams
  • Learning to ‘skate where the puck is’
  • Being aware of trends and spotting gaps in the market
  • Striving for progress over perfection and asking for help

 

GUEST DETAILS
Dr Tara Dalton, CEO of Altratech and Assistant Director of the Stokes Research Institute in the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Limerick.

Dr Dalton is a fellow of the Irish Academy of Engineers. She is one of the founders of Stokes Bio – a spin-out company that was sold to Life Technologies that developed high throughput microfluidic instruments for PCR. Her research interest is in the development of microfluidic devices for biological assays. She has graduated 20 PhD Students, published over 100 refereed papers and has over 50 granted patent and patent applications.

https://altratech.com/

https://ul.ie/research/dr-tara-dalton

 

MORE INFORMATION

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/  

 

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

 

QUOTES

In my mind, in engineering, you don't want to be at the cutting edge of absolute new science. You want to be just behind it, so you can help people with that science. - Tara Dalton

 

When you work with interdisciplinary team, and I work with medics, physicists, chemists or even with other entrepreneurs, it's just amazing, because I find that everybody wants to help you be better. Nobody, at least in my experience, gatekeeps their knowledge. - Tara Dalton

 

Skate where the puck is, right. It didn't matter that I had this great product, but to get venture capital funding, that was never going to happen, because it wasn't in that ecosystem at the time. So that was one really big learning lesson. - Tara Dalton

 

Ask for help. Everybody, ask for help. Go talk to people, go talk to Enterprise Ireland, go talk to lawyers, go talk to VCs. Don't go saying I want, want, want, just say, What should I do? How could you help me? You'd be surprised how many people will give you their time. - Tara Dalton

 

TRANSCRIPTION

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Dusty Rhodes  00:00

Right now on AMPLIFIED, we're about to find out how seemingly impossible things are eminently possible.

 

Tara Dalton  00:07

He never let perfection hinder progress. And so I just say, Okay, let's just make progress. I have to be consciously aware of thinking, Oh, God, we signed a contract to do something like what have we done? Knowing full well, that's going to be a really a hard ask.

 

Dusty Rhodes  00:26

Hello, my name is Dusty Rhodes and you're welcome to AMPLIFIED, the Engineers Journal podcast. I think we can agree that Irish engineers are incredibly creative thinkers and innovators. But it's a big leap going from innovator to entrepreneur, and taking an idea you might have to market. In this episode, we'll be hearing from a prominent engineer with a fascinating career history, which took her from aeronautical engineering into the biomedical space, we'll be finding out how she looks at problems, overcomes obstacles, where she sees innovation and opportunity, and getting some great advice for any engineers who are thinking of launching their own business. It's a pleasure to welcome the CEO of Altratech and the Assistant Director of the Stokes Research Institute at UL. Dr. Tara Dalton. Tara, how are you?

 

Tara Dalton  01:14

Hi, how are you? Hi, I'm good. Thank you so much.

 

Dusty Rhodes  01:18

Listen, welcome onto the podcast. I always start off by asking people what what made you want to be an engineer? How did you get into this game at all?

 

Tara Dalton  01:28

Um, actually, I think to be to be quite truthful, I think it was, it was my father. I had all sorts of different plans. And I, you know, I, I remember not really wanting to do honors maths at school. And my father sort of saying, you know, it opens up such a lot for you. So, you know, he like he worked at the University of Limerick. And he felt that that engineering was a really good combination of creativity and of maths, you know, because I always did like the sciences. I was interested in physics and chemistry, and biology. So I think, in some senses, there was serendipitous things, I suppose it was my dad really kind of pushed me to taking that on.

 

Dusty Rhodes  02:05

So when you went through school and university, you got into engineering then proper, and you started with aeronautical engineering. Tell me a bit more about that. So actually,

 

Tara Dalton  02:13

actually, I started with mechanical and then they launched aeronautical engineering when I was in third year. So at that time, it wasn't a discipline in itself, it was something you could specialize in, in third year, I think I was just so completely fascinated, because I think it goes against every instinct in our body that we can put that thing up in the sky. Every instinct and every single time I think about something that can't be done, I look at and say they they have an engine there that is going at, you know, 15,000 RPM, that's that's huge, up at 36,000 feet. Come on, like, Of course we can do it. So I think it for me, it's just, I think it's just fascinating and in almost a romantic way. And I still love it, you know, I changed because in some senses, there's a lot more I think innovation in biomedical engineering. You know, the aeronautical engineering is quite a regulated piece. So, you know, for me, it didn't allow that creativity and that innovation, so I changed biomedical engineering, but aeronautical engineering still has a huge, you know, soft spot, I said, I didn't know they're applying them, I'm gonna watch

 

Dusty Rhodes  03:23

this, there's a real passion there for you for aeronautical and flying, but you went from that then into biomedical why, why did you make the switch? Well,

 

Tara Dalton  03:33

he so I did, I did a postdoc in the University of Limerick. And at the time, again, you know, the government had this really amazing program, it was called the programs and advanced technology programs. And basically, what they encouraged you to do was as a postdoc, they encouraged you to work hugely with industry. And then they they supported that intervention. So they wanted to link university researchers with industry and we were fortunate, we had a great kind of Pac group. And we worked with Intel, we worked with you to Packard, we worked with, you know, Nokia at the time. And I just got this feed, I just, I loved it, you know, I love that idea that what you did had an impact, you know, even if it is in a in a large multinational or a small company, commensurate with that around the same time, the size foundation Arlindo setup, and at that time, they remit to fund two big things. So ICT at the time and bio, the and, you know, that was their decision. So I thought, okay, let's be real here. You know, if you want to go research, you want to, you know, you've you've to, you have to be like, you know, like Wayne Gretzky, you know, the great ice skater, he said, skate where the puck is going to be, you know, where the puck has been. He knows I mean, so, you know, you've got to look at the landscape and say, well, that's where the research money is going to be. If you think about at the time bio, the genome had just been sequenced. This was the biggest thing ever. There was a breakthrough for peace. See our reactions and everything. So when you looked at these like, okay, there's going to be so much scope for an engineer following breaking science, in my mind and engineering, you don't want to be at the cutting edge of absolute new science. But essentially, you just want to be just behind it. So you can help to, you know, help people with that science. So for me a deal, as I said, the genome has just been sequenced, I can see for the next 15 years, you know, there's going to be massive innovation in this space, which there was. So that's why I changed from Rob arrow mechanical to much more bio COVID. But it is really applying the same principles of any engineer just to a different class of problems. If you're

 

Dusty Rhodes  05:42

listening to you're talking about kind of biomedical, I mean, you're very passionate about it, but I kind of get the impression that you're more are you more passionate about the fact that you're doing something challenging, and something new, and something that's gonna help people rather than it being actually to do with aeronautical or biomedical?

 

Tara Dalton  06:00

Yeah, I think so as I said, the same principles are applied, you know, they think engineering principles are applied to everything. But I think in Biomedical Engineering, well, first of all, it's very interdisciplinary. So you get to learn from, you know, loads of people, and it's full of problems to be solved, which is great, you know, there's loads of things that we don't know, that we want to sell. And so for me, it's like, you know, it's like, it's like, a child in a sweet shop. It Oh, there's just so many interesting things to learn. And I love learning it, there's just so much. And the other thing is, when you work with interdisciplinary team, and I work with, you know, worked with medics, with physicists, or chemists with, you know, with entrepreneurs, with with finance people, it's just, it's just amazing, because I find that everybody wants to help you be better. Nobody, I, at least in my experience, kind of gatekeepers their knowledge. And I think in in, you know, when you're in that race, where you really want to try and solve a problem, I find that people don't take the knowledge because they want to find solutions. And so it's an extraordinary place to be. And also, I think, I'm not a person that some people I think, are really good. And you see people who kind of take a problem, and they dive into it. And deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper, I'm not that kind of person, I like to kind of spread out, you know what I mean? So look at, you know, applying this skill over here, over here from here, rather than doing kind of this classical, deep dive and understanding upon more. Absolutely, that's important as well, if that's just not me. So I think I think this type of problem solving, engineering suits me more than we'll say, a classic scientist, you know, where you're, you're really building on knowledge, and really getting a deep, deep understanding about that uncut of more. Okay, how do we solve a problem? So I think that's the difference between engineering Well, in my opinion, is difference between engineering and sort of deep science, if you like? Well,

 

Dusty Rhodes  08:00

I think that's what we do is, uh, you know, we look at problems and we go, Well, how can we fix this? Or how can we make it better? Now, a lot of people who will be working as engineers are within a company, and then they have all these thoughts and ideas. But sometimes, you know, things don't happen, because there's a boss upstairs, or the company doesn't want to go that way. You're different in that you kind of went, Well, I really want to do this. So I'm going to be an entrepreneur, and I'm going to start my own business, do you think that your engineering brain and the way that it works kind of helped you to stand on your own two feet and run your own business,

 

Tara Dalton  08:32

I think, on my experience, when I did the programs apart, so we ended up interacting with companies an awful lot. And I think that stood out to me. And also I just the idea that something that you created that somebody actually bought me, they paid money, I remember my my father in law saying to me that that money is a stored work, you know what I mean? And so, you know, this idea that somebody is going to pay for that. I thought, That's a brilliant idea. And I always wanted to do it, I always wanted to do it since I was like, since I was sort of 2627. And in a year, you know, whatever about a company in a university environment, you know, there's things are changing and have changed, but at that time, there is a lot of pressure put on publications, and this is what we do and the you know, it's to go and, and say, Okay, I'm going to I'm going to create a company. It's not necessary. Now, University of Limerick, I have to say we're brilliant. But you know, there are people who say, Okay, look at me, that isn't the job of an academic. But I think as an as an academic engineer, it is exactly my job, even if it's not to create enterprise to help enterprise and to work on on sort of, you know, engineering problems. So I always wanted to do that. And I think, you know, naivety is your friend in doing this, it really is because, you know, in some senses Ultratech is my second or was actually was actually technically it's my fourth company. You don't need one but That duck failed for very funny reasons. Oh, yeah, this is hilarious or silly like the first the first week, we had this amazing product, what went? Well, in my view, it was right, it was a fiber optic based system that actually was used to to turn on heaters to take ice off helicopter blades, you need to a wouldn't win helicopters and you know, obviously do ice forming on helicopter blades is really, really bad, depending on the type of ice anyway, it was a it was a piece of hardware. And for some reason I got picked to go to Boston. This is a this like 28 or something to pitch my idea in front of 100 requests, which would there would have been a lawyer firm, but with a lot of VC backing a lot of companies, there was a there was a lot of potential companies going to do that. So I remember sitting there and I had my little piece of hardware, it had my sheet with all this details on it. And I was listening to everybody present. And every single one of them was software companies, this was the.com thing. And they were to some of them were the most stupidest ideas you could ever imagine that but that wasn't the point. The point was, is they weren't getting funding these people were looking for 1.5 million 20. I learned straightaway, okay. Again, that was skate where the puck is, right. So it didn't matter, I had this great product, but to get venture capital funding, that was never going to happen, because it wasn't in that ecosystem at the time. So that was one really big learning lesson. And again, similarly, in the the second company that we did, you know, actually did work, but it wasn't again, it wasn't a high potential startup. So that was one of the reasons I changed to bio because you are basically in VCs, you know, they like to fund we're looking to fund you know, so you're thinking, Okay, I need to be in that in that area. Stokes bio was then the third company. And until we learn, okay, say okay, look, you know, this is what we're going to do, we're going to follow breaking science, we're going to use our own skills, I'm really careful about how we kind of positioned what what we did. And of course, you know, a lot of people said, we're engineers in, in in the biosciences, you haven't opened hell. And again, you just just ignore it, you know what I mean? And I think you ignore it, because you have so much fun doing it, it doesn't really matter. You know, what I mean, you're just really enjoying learning, and we'd love to PhD students, and, you know, we bring in collaborators, and, you know, to use that horrible word, but the journey, like was the you know, was, you know, that was as important as the exit and the final part of

 

Dusty Rhodes  12:33

it, but it is the journey, as you say, and what I love about what you're talking about, it's kind of like, you've given us two examples where you fell down, this isn't wrong with falling down, it's how you pick yourself up afterwards. Okay, so you fell down, once you fell down twice, you picked yourself up, once you picked yourself up twice, you went into the third one. Now, the third one was quite successful. And this is kind of you're very well known for Stokes was, you mentioned it, it's been a big part of your life, because they've kind of struggles commercial company and a university. And I don't understand how that works. So tell me about it.

 

Tara Dalton  13:06

Okay. So that, you know, yeah, so So, so myself and my co founder, Professor Mark Davies, so he was actually my PhD supervisor, and then, you know, we we kind of drifted apart, and then we came back together to, to do this. And again, the genome has been sequenced. And we're really fascinated with that. So we started a research group in the university. And you the advantage of starting your research in the university is, it's a very, it's a very gentle place to explore ideas, so that you're not giving away equity, if you make mistakes are, it's taking time that you know, for a long time, it wasn't, you know, the stuff we were doing wasn't working. And in an in a university environment, that's that can be tolerated a lot easier. And we had we had a number of PhD students, and interestingly, so actually, so we went to the SFI, even five times five times for funding and FBI wouldn't fund what we were doing, and that's okay, I get it, you know, we didn't have a history and what we were doing, and at the time, you know, reviewers would say, Look, you know, this isn't really that novel, etc. But engineering isn't supposed to be a hugely novel, it's supposed to take science and, and if you take, yeah, if you take a hero experiment that's done once you want to engineer it, so it's, you could do it 100 million times, you know, so that's kind of where we were coming at, and, and I can I get away as if i But anyway, I at that time, when I was like, Oh my God, you know, how are we going to get funding? What are we going to do now? Enterprise Ireland was, were really supportive of what we were doing, and they funded us. And I thought, okay, you know, what we'll do, we'll, we'll um, Bucha some publicity. So we did some publicity and and I contacted a publicist. And I said, Listen, you know, I think what we're doing is really kind of clever and interesting. Could you know, could we get some traction, just even on the Irish stage, not necessarily European or American. So It was caused and caught by the Irish Times, actually. And a VC saw it. And he approached us. And he said, When you spin this company out, can we be at the table, we'll give you 100,000 euros if we're at the table. And I said, look, let's forget that, let's just do it now. You know, I was so anxious. And you know, in some senses what I said we were a bit early. Probably. That's true. So the University of Limerick, and also, under the sea did a deal for our intellectual property, we did a deal for way to whole bunch of students. And we moved the company out of the university, I wanted it out to the university. So I wanted a real separation between what we did and do well, and what appealed to commercial aspect of what we were doing. And like the university, as I said, they were, they were amazing, they allowed me, myself and mark to remain as academics, okay, full time academics and to do the company. And that took a lot of creative thinking. And what we did is, they also, they assigned us our intellectual property, which means our intellectual property was owned by the company not licensed. And I know that that isn't done now. But it was such a really good thing for the company. It gave us huge freedoms later on and raising money and enjoying strategic relationships. So you know, I know that's not done nowadays. But it was it was great. So, so we ended up taking our PhD students into the company, thankfully, as they started to graduate. So we had this well, what's the word? I'm looking for conveyor belt of amazing, amazing people that we took into the company. And yeah, but you know, don't get me wrong. It was it was hard, because you know, we were new with this new what managing VCs knew what that relationships, they were raising money. And then finally, we got to strategic you know, for the the deal, the exit happened, and that was great. But it was it was tough, but fun. You know,

 

Dusty Rhodes  16:52

it's fascinating listening to you taking on this problem of having an idea and wanting to run a company to implement that idea, and the reasons why you did it. And it didn't work. The first time didn't work the second time, the third time it did work and to you, you had good partners and stuff like that. Eventually, you have to sell it, which is always you know, kind of heartbreaking. Did you make much?

 

Tara Dalton  17:11

Yeah, we did

 

17:14

it. Okay. So yeah, so we put a number on a Tyra Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah.

 

Tara Dalton  17:19

So, so we ended up selling, so we raised about sort of maybe six, 7 million, and that we sold it for almost $50 million, which, which is a really nice return for everybody. Because if the company hadn't got had a really nice, simple cap table, it wasn't hugely diluted. So you know, it was good. It was good in that regard. So I think everybody did, did well.

 

Dusty Rhodes  17:40

Well, all I could do, I'm literally standing up and applauding. Good on you fair play, okay. Because it's brilliant. Because you follow that through and you worked on all of the problems and you had some success. Okay, as somebody that was great. And it was 2010, he sold us somewhere around Yeah,

 

Tara Dalton  17:55

then myself and Mark White to work for the company. The acquirers were like technologies that term proficient out. So we went, we took then a two year leave of absence to work with the integration of the technology into into which was, again, I got to work with a multinational for two years, which was really exciting. And that was still that was really different. And, you know, I teach my students, we do live, we do med devices, and we do like a Dragon's Den. So I teach them, you know, and one of the things this exact same thing you do with selling an idea to a VC, you'd sell an idea to your bosses in a multinational this is same thing, it's the same ideas. And so we, you know, we had that experience as well of kind of integrating the, what we were doing into, into a US multinational, which was, you know, which was, which was different, that's for certain.

 

Dusty Rhodes  18:46

So, as well as teaching and inspiring people in University of Limerick, still, you're also the CEO of ultra tech, as I mentioned in the intro, now, you're leading a team of over 20 engineers and scientists there to a layman like myself, can you describe what it is that you're working on?

 

Tara Dalton  19:01

Okay, so so I'll check it. I'm not a founder Valtryek there are two founders, one of the founders, I knew because he was founded, he founded his previous company, the same time we, I found his Stokes bio, and he was in the university as well. So and we were funded by the same venture capitalist, so we kind of knew each other. And then, you know, we kind of both he sold his company successfully, I thought line that we kind of got together. And he said he had this idea of, he's a silicon designers, electronics engineer. And he said, Oh, you know, could I do something with silicone in the bio space? And I was like, you know, it's really interesting. You say that, because there's been this huge explosion. So I know that that live technologies brought a secrecy company for silicone. I think they bought it for north of 600 million. Okay, so it was a huge acquisition. And there were some other companies that was nanopore, there was a few and I said, Juno's on the champ. I said, Yeah, you know, there's, there's an idea there. So he went away, and he kind of thought about it. And then no other venture capitalist said, you know, Tara, you know, you know Hold this space because, you know, I'd been in that kind of bio space, etc. And he said, You know what, you'll be on the board. And I was like, hey, yeah, absolutely. Because I'd been back in the university for a while I was doing some work on cancer stuff on stuff on heterogeneity of tumors. And I was like, Oh, I'm kind of feeling the itch again, now to do something outside of that. And so I said, Yeah, I'll be on the board. And then a week later, he goes, target you CEO. And I was like, Are you kidding me? I was like, oh, gosh, no, you know, and I said to my husband, I was like, Jeff, I said, Oh, God, this is Tony, you have to, you know, you have to like, so I was like, okay, okay. Okay, I'll do it. And so basically, what what it is that it's really compelling science. And it's so interdisciplinary, it's basically it's a methodology, or a product that can take that can detect any virus in a non clinical setting. Very importantly, it doesn't use an enzymatic step. So you would be aware, Okay, everybody, listen, he says, Beware of PCR, every, you know, if I was to tell everybody, there's like, three, four years ago, pre COVID, they look at me blankly, but now kind of people get it, right. So you know, what PCR is, you know, how the importance of it, and how, cuz it's such an accurate technique for detecting any virus from COVID, to flu to, you know, to HIV doesn't matter. But the trouble with PCR is, it's a technique that you can't really take outside the laboratory or the clinical setting. And so we've invented a way that can do that. And it uses a combination of, you know, really novel chemistry, biology, and micro fluidics, which is kind of white area, and silicon chip design. So it's really difficult. And it you know, it's been tough, you know, the technological development will just help. But if it wasn't taught me, it's not going to be worth it, right? Because you will say, well, then it is tough because it is so groundbreaking. And so it's going to change the world, in my view for for viral detection, in my view, but but it is, it is technically challenging.

 

Dusty Rhodes  22:06

You've mentioned several times, as you're always thinking about where the puck is going to be rather than where it is now. And when you talk about Ultra Tech, I mean, that was 20s, mid, mid 20, teens, whatever you were involved in that was it.

 

Tara Dalton  22:18

Yeah. Just prior to COVID. Exactly.

 

Dusty Rhodes  22:22

My point, right is because you got involved in this, and then COVID came along, and boom, your company is perfectly. Yeah,

 

Tara Dalton  22:28

it's so funny, because we wait a video we to do in 2000 2019, or just before COVID In November, we to do a presentation in Boston, and party me to make a video of what your technology does. And initially, we had on the video, this will this would be you know, suitable for pandemic management and etc. At that and Marty came up. The difficulty was we were our technology was too early for it. You know what I mean? Like, and when you get a crisis situation like that, what happens is, is you reposition old technology, because that's what you have to do, you don't really have the time to to invent something new. But what a crisis does is you reposition old technology. But then what it does is it makes people aware that oh my gosh, there's there's a need there, you know, there is a need for us to be able to, to manage pandemics in a much better way than obviously what we then what's happened. And there's going to be technologies that are going to enable that whether we get there whether we were in the race, I don't know. But we're definitely in with a chance.

 

Dusty Rhodes  23:33

I absolutely love how your brain works. Because seriously, because you think research development, innovation is very much key to you. You're kind of always thinking about the future. But you always seem to spot a gap in the market. And what I wanted to ask you is Do you even know in your own brain, how you are able to spot a gap in the market? What how do you weigh things up when you when you're looking at?

 

Tara Dalton  23:57

I think I think, first of all, I don't know whether I am or not, you know what I mean? I think that that remains to be seen. But anyway, I think it's because I generally, that's the broadness, this was not the deep dive person, like, you know, it's looking around you. So I've just gotten funding now for our next company, which after Ultratech and you know, and we were just doing the the early research now in the university, and it's on, it's on the immune system. It's on immunotherapies. And, you know, if I'm just asking you say, oh, yeah, okay, you get that because, you know, if you were to pick up the newspaper 10 years ago, you wouldn't read about immunotherapies you wouldn't think about it. Now we know we think about like the immune system, autoimmune diseases, allergies are our understanding about how we react to vaccines. immunotherapies for cancer, you know, that's exploded in the last 10 years. So again, we're going to need engineering behind that technology, you know, behind that science to support the growth in that area. So that's, you know, it's just it's just kind of watching and thinking that's new. Debrett's breaking signs really is where she wants to keep an eye on for me, that's what I keep an eye on. And then

 

Dusty Rhodes  25:04

when you see something that you think has potential, you look into it a little bit further. And then

 

Tara Dalton  25:10

you know, the the virus say, I mean, that's, that's kind of obvious if you though I mean, if you think about it, all the outbreaks that we've had no stars, you know, that you just know, and you know, it was going to happen. We knew it was going to happen. It was not a question of, of if it was, it was a question of weighty. Okay. I mean, you know, that's, that's 100% I mean, everything from the Spanish Flu guys, you know, it's just, it's just a matter of when, and we were lucky this time,

 

Dusty Rhodes  25:38

why are you so confident when you say that COVID Was it was a matter of when not if

 

Tara Dalton  25:43

it because there's been because others always outbreaks, there's always outbreaks, and all you need is the right conditions. So if you take something like, if you take a virus that is that, like kills people quickly, that is probably not going to spread much. It is something that spreads a lot, it's probably not going to. So all you need to do is just get that balance, right? Where a you know, spreads quickly, and it has a potentially devastating effect, that's going to happen again, of course it is, you know, and if you think about it, you know, how the world has changed global travel or interaction where something may have been contained. You know, I remember saying to somebody, you know, five years ago, I said, we will listen, somebody would use the word quarantine and in our lifetimes, and would hear the word quarantine again, you know, we were probably going up, did you ever hear the word quarantine in the 50s? You would have heard it hear when people had scarlet fever when people had people quarantined? Now, it's, it's, you know, obviously, we tried it, it's, you know, it's not really feasible. It's you know, so we need other ways of managing when these when these things happen. And it's got to be a combination of understanding and technology in my view. So

 

Dusty Rhodes  26:50

I think anybody in listening, I mean, I've my own ideas, my own radio broadcasting podcasting business about where it's going to be in 10 years time, there's engineers listening to it, and the guy, oh, my God, and she's right, because I know that in 10 years, time bump is going to be a problem, or this is going to happen again, or whatever it happens to be. If somebody is listening to you, they have a big, innovative idea in their head, but they just don't know how to move forward. What What would your advice to them be?

 

Tara Dalton  27:17

I think I think it depends where they are, you know, where they are in their we're in a physically working as well. And well, opportunities they have, you know, obviously, it's somebody's in a university there, you know, that's the that's the ecosystem, I understand. So I can, you know, very easily direct them. If somebody is in a multinational company, or somebody is not, I would have less understanding about how they would go about you know, about doing that. I think, regardless, ask for help. Everybody asked for help, go talk to people go talk to enterprise Ireland, go talk to lawyers, go talk to VCs, ask, and don't go say, I want one just say, What should I do? How could you help me? What can I do? And you'd be surprised? How many people will give you their time. And you'll be surprised at it? In my view? You know, we had we have top lawyers in Boston who did stuff for us pro bono, because they just think oh, yeah, this is really cool. We'll do that. And we'll be we'll make our money later on when they're successful. You know, there's a lot of people who will do that for you. So talk, go out there and share your idea.

 

Dusty Rhodes  28:31

I love the fact that I'm speaking to a lady who has sold a company for $50 million, and says that ask for help because it's what you did. And people were willing to step up. Isn't it amazing how Yeah, humankind

 

Tara Dalton  28:43

can even now no matter what you do, people come to me or I still go to meet with it. Okay, you know, I need help here are, I'm not sure. People who worked for me before and still do not work for me and outreach. I could work with me and Outotec and anybody, you start to build that community, and it's true, I will, I will call like, next PhD student or somebody I knows, crikey, I need help on that. Or they can call me and say, Tara, you know, to remember that you wouldn't give me an hour of your time. As like, yeah, of course you don't I mean, and I you know, I love it. So and people do love being asked for help.

 

Dusty Rhodes  29:16

That's brilliant advice, and I can't be overstated so much, how good that advice is and my own experience, I know that to be true. The other thing that I want to ask you about Tara is your approach to problem solving and again, thinking of an NGO saying I've got a brilliant idea and I want to go but it's too much oh my god, how do you know I have to get over this humongously big wall which I don't know how to get over how am I going to do it you're good problem solver what way do you break down that problem?

 

Tara Dalton  29:45

Well actually interesting. So I'm actually I'm a bit more the way you just like oh my god. Oh my god. Like John like that isn't They do jam via the site like dig, watch, scrape. Have you gotten into today? I was like, Yeah, I know. I know. I know. And it's like, and he would say, okay, you know, what can you do tomorrow? You know, stop borrowing Tobel it's got too much interest, you know what I mean? Just what can you do? And the person I worked Davies, who I worked with as well, he was really good. He never flapped he never let perfection get in hinder progress. And so I just say, Okay, let's just make progress. And and really, I had, but I, I have to be consciously aware of thinking, Oh, God, you know what I mean? What have we committed to? We signed the contract to do something like what have we done? Knowing full? Well, it that's going to be a really a hard ask, and then you think, Okay, nope, let's just, let's just put the head down. And don't think about it. You know what I mean? Literally just say, Okay, let's not have that hinder the small progresses, you don't have any so so yeah, but I would be more the way you described it, then I would be, you know, like auction, this is fine.

 

Dusty Rhodes  31:05

I've written down a sheet of paper here, never let perfection hinder progress. I'm gonna type that up. I'm gonna stick it on the wall. It's gonna stay there for six months.

 

Tara Dalton  31:13

Yeah, don't I mean, you know, to meet our, to our children, you know, children get on with it, you know what I mean? Rather than it will, because you can get this, if you see this huge problem, it's like, you just wrap it in the headlights, you just look at it and go and feel paralyzed. And then you just gotta go. Okay? No. And also, I think having people around you that you can see that too. There's a there's a guy I love listen to this. It's Simon Sinek. But he has his eight minute rule. And he says, like, you should have a team around you that, you know, for eight minutes, you could rant and that they're not instantly you know, sometimes you don't want somebody in solution space. You just want somebody to listen to you go like, Oh my god, oh my god, this is terrible. This is not going to work. What's going to happen that anatra and you give yourself eight minutes. That's it? And then it's over and over again. So So you know, I think I think you have to allow yourself that feeling and then say, Okay, push it away. Now, let's get let's let's get let's get on with it. You know, so, Tara,

 

Dusty Rhodes  32:13

I have to say like listening to you, and just chatting because I have a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit in me. And I have, I like to call myself a sound engineer. That's, that's that's how I get away with just presenting this particular thing. But like many engineers, I see problems and I want to fix them. And I want to make the world better. And I think you know, your success is amazing. And after listening to you for the last little while, you're now guarding my world. Okay? Well, this is it. Okay. That's what I wanted to ask you was, you know who people who are listening now who are inspired by you? What would you say to someone who's listening to us right now? Who does think you're an inspiration? Are you God? Are you a normal person?

 

Tara Dalton  32:56

I'm an engineer. I'm an engineer. Engineer. Those of us out there who do you know, who to all day see solve all these problems all the time? You know, and, and there's ones that artists zillion many, and I like, like Chad, when he was with this much better engineer than me, like, I'm always going to him with solving problems, you know, you know, Mark is much better. So yeah, you know, there's, I think I would say cheese your problem wisely. Often, in my mind of, for an engineer, they're often too focused on solutions, right, you solving problems. But if you want to, if you want to sort of have a impact, do that, choose your spend time choosing your problem, like, like when we were doing Stokes whale, like Mark and I spent two years in America watching what people were doing, and seeking out that landscape. So don't be afraid of taking time to figure that problem out. It'll be the solution. Anybody can do that, to be honest with you, like a lot of people if you give them a good problem, and you set the boundary conditions on that problem. And you say, okay, look, this is the kind of area that most most people weren't there salt can do that. I think that cleverness in my view, and is choosing the correct problem at the right time. That so that's what I would say, spend time doing that. And talking and socializing it and thinking of it and testing it, and arguing it. And that's why it's great to work with people because you get all that feedback. You know, it's like, if I say to you, look, I'm thinking of doing something there and you're like, why are silicones doing that? What's your angle are you know, I mean, don't be afraid to just let that argument be battered around a bit. And and it'll form much better outfits are sorry, I talk way too much apologies. Listen,

 

Dusty Rhodes  34:48

I can listen to you all day. Tara, I think what I was trying to get across was that what's inside of you and what's driven your success is inside all of us. It's an engineering in trait, and I just think listening to you and as I say, being inspired by what you're saying we can go off and we can just make our own lives a little bit better. So I just wanted to thank you very much for sharing with us today Dr. Tara Dalton, CEO of Altratech and Assistant Director of the Stokes Research Institute at UL Thank you.

 

Tara Dalton  35:17

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

 

Dusty Rhodes  35:19

If you would like to find out more about Tara and some of the topics which we spoke about today you'll find notes and link details in the description area of this podcast right now. Also, if you enjoyed our podcast today do share with a friend in the business just tell them to search for engineers Ireland in their podcast player. Our podcast is produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland. For advanced episodes, more information on engineering across Ireland or career development opportunities, there are libraries of information on our website at engineersireland.ie, until next time from myself Dusty Rhodes, as always, thank you for listening

From Engineer to Entrepreneur: Dr. Tara Dalton, CEO of Altratech

Engineers are incredibly innovative and ambitious, but having the right skills and mindset is key to having your ideas heard and supported.

Through self-development and continuous learning you can make yourself stand out in the crowd. Today we find out what education options are available to engineers and what skills you need to focus on to become an invaluable pi-shaped professional.

Our expert today is an electronic engineer who is incredibly passionate about professional development and learning. She is the former Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies and current Director of UL@Work at University of Limerick, Professor Ann Ledwith.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

Things we spoke about

01:09 Ann’s Start In Engineering

05:03 How to make an impression and progress

09:19 Transversal Skills and becoming a pi-shaped professional

13:27 The difference between management and leadership

16:20 Advice for young engineers pursuing leadership

18:13 Business-oriented skills for engineering

20:30 How to approach continued learning

21:54 Further education opportunities with UL@Work

24:50 Learning time commitment and workplace support

Guest details

Professor Ann Ledwith is a graduate of N.I.H.E Limerick where she obtained a degree in Electronic Engineering.  She subsequently completed an MBA at the University of Limerick and a PhD in Managing Product Development at the University of Brighton. She has held a variety of positions at UL including Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies, Director of Continuing and Professional Education, and Assistant Dean of Research (Adult and Continuing Education) with the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Currently Prof Ledwith is the Director of HCI and UL@Work, and is responsible for delivering UL’s Human Capital Initiative project, UL@Work, which aims to develop digital, industry 4.0, talent through flexible, innovative and technology-enabled, experiential learning; linking enterprise and education to form a co-designed future learning environment.  She is passionate about the role of the university in supporting regional growth and currently chairs Explore Engineering, an industry-led initiative to  increase the quality and quantity of engineering talent (apprentice, technicians and engineers) in the region.

Prof Ledwith worked for over twelve years as a Product Development Engineer and as a Manager of Product Development in small high-technology firms.  She spent 2 years managing the Centre for Project Management at the University of Limerick.  Professor Ledwith has a keen interest in work-based students and flexible learning. Throughout her academic career, she has designed and delivered part-time and blended programmes for both under- and post-graduate students on topics such as Project Management, Entrepreneurship, Innovation Management, Technology Management and Reliability.  Her research interests include new product development, project management, R&D management, innovation and technology management in small firms.

Website: www.ul.ie

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-ledwith-65873a/

Further education links:

https://www.ul.ie/gps/professionalflexible-programmes

https://www.ul.ie/gps/microcredentials

https://www.ul.ie/gps/springboard-courses

https://www.ul.ie/gps/professionalflexible-programmes/apprenticeships

More information

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/ 

Engineers Journal AMPLIFIED is produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland.

Quotes

You have to be willing to step up, you have to be willing to say, ‘Yeah, I can take charge of this project, or I can manage a few people.’ - Ann Ledwith

When you're working with people, you need a certain amount of single mindedness and focus, but you also need to be able to bring your people along with you, you need to appreciate and listen to what people are saying. You need to have a vision, you need to be able to communicate that vision, and you need to be able to convince people that's where they want to be as well. - Ann Ledwith

We often talk about a pi-shaped professional, you need these broad skills along the top, and then your areas of expertise. You need both if you want to be successful. - Ann Ledwith

I think that sense of having a vision of how you want to move things forward is very important, but that's useless unless you can bring people with you - Ann Ledwith

It is so important for job satisfaction that people can see that they've contributed to something. I think that's why people follow leaders because they feel that it's adding more meaning and more relevance to what they're doing. - Ann Ledwith

The first thing is to let people know you're there and to let people know that you do have ambition. Very often that's the toughest step for a young engineer, we're not taught to go forward and to share your ideas like that. But I think it's very important that you make sure people realize that the potential that you have - Ann Ledwith

One of the key things if you are getting on that journey of continuous education is to get the support from your manager. Tell them how this program is actually going to progress you, it's not just that you're getting skills, but your company is getting skills - Ann Ledwith

Transcription

For your convenience, we include an automated AI transcription

Dusty Rhodes 00:00

In your engineering career, do you want to be a manager or leader? And what's the difference? We're about to find out.

Ann Ledwith 00:07

When you get into leadership, you have a vision, you're able to say, well, this is how I think things should be. First, that's useless, unless you can bring people with you.

Dusty Rhodes 00:21

Hello there, my name is Dusty Rhodes, and welcome to AMPLIFIED the Engineers Journal podcast. Most successful engineers agree that continuous learning is paramount to a successful and progressive career in engineering. But when innovation and technology are moving at such a rapid pace today, it can feel overwhelming to keep up. So today, we're going to find out what further education options are available to engineers and what skills you can develop to help move yourself forward and upwards in your career. Our guest today is incredibly passionate about professional development and learning. She is the former Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies and the current director of UL@Work, at the University of Limerick, Ann Ledwith. Thank you very much for joining us on the podcast. Thank you. So listen, tell me Ann you're a big advocate for careers in engineering. How did you get into this business? How did you know it was the right path for you?

Ann Ledwith 01:18

I suppose it was a bit serendipitous when I was at school and ended up breaking desolations in Limerick, we didn't have physics and I decided I wanted to do physics. So about four of us had to go to the local Christian Brothers school that was just across the road to do physics. And up to probably the end of fifth year, I was going to be a dentist, I'd probably be a lot richer if I was a dentist but who knows I wouldn't be happier. But all the boys were going to physics, we're all going to do engineering. So I said, and I was good at physics, I was good at math and those types of subjects. And I said, Well, if they're going to be engineers, then I should be an engineer too. So to be honest, it wasn't a career that had ever entered my mind. Until I heard my classmates talking about the classmates and my physics class talking about it. Now he's helped that we have a passionate female physics teacher as well, that was very, very supportive. But that's where I decided to do engineering. And at the time, and he, as it was then was just starting, they had a very good program in electronic engineering. And that's where I ended up with quite a few of my colleagues from our physics class, Limerick as well.

Dusty Rhodes 02:30

So when you got out into the real world, what kind of engineering work were you doing?

Ann Ledwith 02:34

Well, I did electronic engineering, and I worked for a while with analog devices, I moved to Germany on a contract for about a year. And then I came back to Limerick and worked with a company called Interpro. As a design engineer and an entrepreneur, we were designing automatic test equipment for power supplies. So I was involved in hardware, and software firmware, and worked there for about seven, eight years, it was a small company, it was a startup, a great place for an engineer to start. Because I think in a smaller company like that, you're exposed to everything you're exposed to how sales work, how orders are fulfilled, how manufacturing happens. And I felt that was a really, really good start and foundation for my career in engineering. And that's where I started to get opportunities for leadership as well. Again, in a smaller company, I started being the manager of our software development and ended up being the R&D manager in the company. So I was looking after all of our development. But I suppose at that stage, I knew the business inside out, I had been there for a good number of years and knew everybody involved. So it was a very interesting and very kind of exciting time.

Dusty Rhodes 03:44

I liked the way you say that you went into management. And you mentioned leadership because the two are almost completely different things. And it's something I want to delve into a little later. But looking back at your engineering career, what would you say is the one thing that you're most proud of?

Ann Ledwith 04:00

Oh, that's, that's a hard one. Because I moved, my career changed quite a bit. So while I was at Interpro, I was very proud. We developed a new system, a new test system, I was responsible for developing the software and how the software looked, and also for developing some of the hardware modules on that. And it was definitely very rewarding to see the equipment in use in companies to see, you know, something that you were able to step back and say, Well, I designed that, you know, and it's part of a production for and there were maybe four or five of these things lined up churning through power supplies, testing them, and you can kind of say, well, well, I did that. That was me. So I think that's one of the things that's great about engineering is that we make things and very often when you make things you can see the things that you made, and you can see them working and people using them. And whether it's something else kind of mundane as a piece of test equipment, or a new bridge or you know, a new mobile device or whatever it is but we make things and we make things that work and I That's one of the things that I really love about a career in engineering.

Dusty Rhodes 05:03

So one of the things that I do want to chat about a little bit later is management and leadership because there's a huge difference between them. But can I start by asking you about your own journey kind of moving from the shop floor as it were into management and into leadership? Then how does somebody move upwards in a business? What steps should they take?

Ann Ledwith 05:23

Like, I guess, to a certain extent, it's different depending on the business you're in, like I was in a small company, and I was willing to take on the responsibility, I think that's an awful lot of it, that you have to be willing to step up, you have to be willing to say, Yeah, I can take charge of this project, or I can manage a few people. And that's not for everybody. But I think, you know, if you have a bit of ambition, and if you like to, my I hate to say if you're a bit of a control freak, like you like to determine the outcome of things, and I think an awful lot of engineers do, like you don't like things to just happen to you, you like to have some control over what's happening to you and how systems are developed and, and how you make decisions. You know, in my case, it was in how we were developing our software. And I actually ended up having some quite strong views about that, because of how our system was configured and how I felt it should work. And we'd be better to move to something that was more modular. And it's by deciding that you want to take ownership, I think it's an awful lot of where you're at that you have to decide, I can do this, I will step up and do it. And to look at the other people around you and think, look, I can do at least as good a job as they can do. So why not me? But I think maybe two things have to happen. One is that your company has to appreciate you and be willing to promote you. And by and large, people are happy to prod people who want to do the work. But I think an awful lot of it has to come internally from you, as an engineer, that you're saying, Yes, I'm willing to take this step forward. Yes, it's not beyond me to decide, I'm not just going to implement a design what I'm being asked to design, but I actually want to be more involved in making those decisions and directing what's happening and have more control over where our product or technology or whatever else it is, is going.

Dusty Rhodes 07:07

There is a world of difference in designing something and controlling that thing, as you say, and then controlling people, which is the team. But there are similar two skills at the same time. So what kind of skills do you think are important for progression in that way?

Ann Ledwith 07:21

Like, I think of the two, it's controlling the people and managing the people that number one is actually what's critical to making projects happen. And is something that's more difficult. And I think it is something that comes a little bit more with age, you need a bit of experience and a bit of maturity before you can start to manage other people and bring them along. That's my opinion on it. I think you need a lot of empathy. When you're working with people, you need a certain amount of kind of single-mindedness and focus. But you also need to be able to bring your people along with you, you need to appreciate and listen to what people are saying. But you need to have a vision, you need to be able to communicate that vision. And you need to be able to convince people, that's where they want to be as well. But they are two different skill sets. And of the two I'd say the one that takes a bit longer to develop is the people management and the people management skills.

Dusty Rhodes 08:16

And where do you learn those skills? Or where do you start learning those skills?

Ann Ledwith 08:20

You start in kindergarten, you know, I often think that how you interact with people starts at the very, very beginning. But it is kind of when you get into your career. And when you start moving forward, I think you just have to observe what's happening around you. Now there are lots of programs that will help. And I know when I was kind of going through that management phase earlier in my career, I did take part in a leadership program. And it was very useful. But an awful lot of the use of being on a program like that is really talking to peers and talking to colleagues and finding what are other people doing and realizing that you know, other people have the same problems as you have heard, and they have different ways of solving them and different ways of going about things. So I think anywhere in my life when I've gone back for additional learning, the learning itself has been useful, but almost more useful is that peer-to-peer learning. And I think that that still holds true in almost any area of kind of upskilling and rescaling is that peer learning can be really, really important. So I think that's a key place where you learn and where you observe what people are doing. 

Dusty Rhodes 09:19

One word I have heard bandied around in relation to this is transversal skills. What exactly are transversal skills?

Ann Ledwith 09:26

They're just a new thing. Know, I think they are a new name for things that we always had to do you know, for things that you gained with experience, but I think they are a very important skill set that we have maybe over the last years started to kind of pigeonhole different people into particular professions and particular skill sets. But yes, when you get out into the workplace, you need to be able to work with people. You need to be able to communicate effectively. You need to be able to manage teams and work in a team. And they're all those kinds of what used to be softer skills and are now more commonly referred to as power skills. But to be honest, you know, way back kind of 1015 years ago, when I was more involved in engineering programs here at UL and getting programs accredited, there were always those learning outcomes that were about managing teams and being aware of society and being aware of the people around you. And making sure that engineers had those skills, as well as having the technical skills, which I think is really, really important. So I think transversal skills are very, very useful, I think they're things that should be part of all of our degrees. And all of our undergraduates should get them, I think, to be honest, are coming to the forum. Now, post COVID, because we've had whatever it is for three, four years, where people have been working in very kind of isolated ways. And it's almost like we've got to bring them back together and teach people how to work with each other and work together. So we often talk about that kind of pie-shaped professional, that you need these broad skills along the top, and then your areas of expertise. But you need both if you want to be successful.

Dusty Rhodes 11:02

That's another phrase that I've heard is T shaped professionals that somebody is somebody brought up at the top. And yeah, when

Ann Ledwith 11:08

I'm saying pie, I'm just putting an extra leg on that T because very often we need somebody who you know, understands it, as well as understanding telecoms, or whether it's very close, or circuit design or, or even medicine, we're seeing so much more of an overlap between an awful lot of these professions that that in areas of biological sciences, medical sciences, that research is really delving into how technology is informing that how AI is informing that. 

Dusty Rhodes 11:39

So you need more than one expertise very often when you're thinking about your career, and you're kind of thinking I want to move on and do something else... engineering related, what kind of opportunities are there for engineers outside of the direct industry itself?

Ann Ledwith 11:52

I take there are a lot of different careers and career paths that engineers can take. That's one of the things that I really like about an engineering degree and would encourage, you know, parents talking to kids to look at engineering, because I think sometimes when you're at the start of it, you think, Well, I'm going to be an engineer, and that's what I'm going to do. But to actually develop a skill set as an engineer, that can apply in an awful lot of different areas. So you would see engineers talk turning up in sales and marketing, in systems an awful lot in education in a lot of different spheres. And I think one of the things that an engineering degree gives you is almost a way of thinking as a systems way of thinking because I find that something that to me an awful lot in my career, that I can look at, you know, a problem or a mess, you know, what, whether it's to do with engineering, whether it's to do with how we're structuring a program at work, or whether it's dealing with another project at work, and I find I can put a structure on it, you know, I can pull the bits of it together that matters. I can say, well, this is how we should do this. This is the way we should put this as a project. And I think it's that kind of high-level systems thinking that engineers are actually quite good at that there is a kind of a way that you think that that's very structured and systematized and you think, well, we're going to do that, and how are we going to measure it? And how will we know? What resources will we need? So you start to think in a far more kind of structured way. And I think that can apply across the board. And that's why you find engineers, very often in management roles in a lot of industries. So they've left behind the engineering, and they're working in kind of general management areas.

Dusty Rhodes 13:27

I think what I hear you saying is engineers are problem solvers. And you know, leadership and management are all about solving problems with teams, we often the arrow of the importance of leadership in engineering, one is the difference between management because lots of people go into management, or very few people become leaders. What is the difference between management and leadership?

Ann Ledwith 13:49

I think one of the key differences is when you get into leadership, you have a vision, and maybe you have visions about several visions, but you have, you know, you're able to say, well, this is how I think things should be. And I was actually thinking about this recently. And that's one thing that I found that the later stages of my career, that I'm actually much more willing to step forward and say, Well, this is where I think you should actually go with this. And this is how it should look in the future. And I think that sense of having a vision that you want to show how you want to move things forward is very important. But that's useless unless you can bring people with you. So I think it's being able to do both of those things. Because we can think of and even within companies, you will get these people who have crazy mad ideas, but nobody listens to them. And that can sometimes be big, it's not necessarily the best thing. But I think if you can bring people along with you on those towards what that vision is, if you can be inclusive in developing how you think you want things to go forward and actually bring things with you. I think that that's the key with leadership is that you can have that vision, but that you could communicate and bring people along with you towards that vision.

Dusty Rhodes 14:58

Then when you are a leader either and you have a vision and you're going for this particular goal to improve the world. And you've got 50 PP behind you. And man, I like the way that guys think I'm going to work with him. Alright, so your leader, how does that kind of leadership improve the quality of work and experience within a company, for the people who were behind you and supporting you?

Ann Ledwith 15:20

Well, I think it gives you I mean, there's a great sense of grace, satisfaction and being part of a team, that that is working towards something and something that's going to improve whether it's improving how we work, improving how we teach, improving what our product looks like. But that is working towards improvement and to feel that you're listened to that you're part of that you're of achieving something, and that you're confident contributing. And I actually think that I mean, that is so important for job satisfaction is that people can see that they've contributed to something that has made an improvement. And I think that's why people would very often follow leaders because they feel that that it adds more meaning it's adding more relevance to what they're doing. And they're actually they're achieving something, as opposed to, you know, the same thing as I did yesterday. And here's what I'm going to be doing next week, and my manager says, I should do it x, y, and z because that's the way the company does it. And I think that's part of the difference. And it's a much more exciting place to be, you know, when you're trying to create something new or do something new.

Dusty Rhodes 16:20

So this is developing really nicely because a leader is somebody who has vision, he's got people who agree with our vision, who are following him, but the leader is also interested in helping the people who are following him, develop themselves. So if I'm sitting here, and I'm an engineer, and I'm kind of thinking this sounds good, I want to get into management, because I've got ideas, I want to change the world in my own way. I mean, how do I start all of the, you know, I'm just working at a desk as a regular engineer, how do you start the journey towards management and leadership?

Ann Ledwith 16:53

So you're sitting at your desk, but where are you? You know, why does your company what are you passionate about? You know, are you designing, you know, a communication system that you think should be done differently and should use a different type of technology? And I think it depends on your context. And I think part of kind of the first thing that you need to do is to step up and to make sure that the people who are working with you, and particularly the people who are senior to you in the company, know that you want to go further, I know that you want to take on a leadership role. And they're aware that you're there. So very often kind of as a junior engineer there, and there's a tendency to keep my head down and get the work done. That's not going to get too far if you want to get involved in leadership. And you don't have to be the person who's shouting for the trees or anything like that. But you do have to be the person who will make sure that their voice is heard, and their opinion is heard. And if you have a good idea, well articulated and share it. So I think the first thing is to let people know you're there and to let people know that you do have ambition. And I think very often that's the toughest step for a young engineer. Because I mean, very often we're not taught to kind of go forward and to share your ideas like that. But I think it's very important that you, you make sure people see you and you make sure people realize the potential that you have.

Dusty Rhodes 18:13

You think if you're going to then go into the leadership side of things that you need to do you need to be business orientated. For that, you have to do a business degree on top of everything else.

Ann Ledwith 18:25

I think that depends, I think in some of the kinds of larger technical companies, they would have a route for leadership on an engineering side that needn't be as involved in the business. But to be honest, I think, really, so if you're in a smaller company, then there is more of a need to have a better idea of where the business is at. But in either case, I think you have to be aware of the implications of the decisions that you're making. So you do have to be aware of the business. And I think as an engineer, again, that would be advice to kind of engineers starting out, become aware of what your businesses, you know, who are your key customers, what are the, you know, how was your product differentiated from other people's products, because that is important, it is important that you know, where the business is going. And I know when I was kind of mid-career, as I said, I did, I did a leadership course. But I went on and did an MBA as well. And that was very, very useful to me at the time that I did it. So I think that you know, whether it's an MBA or whether it's, you know, even in something in project management or management in general, I think that skill set that's kind of outside of engineering is very useful for you. But I would say to engineers, get your feet under the table, you know, I wouldn't be jumping into something like that when you're two years out of college. Wait until you actually know what way is that up and you know where your industry is before you go and get that skill set.

Dusty Rhodes 19:44

Do you think another way of possibly doing this and letting people know that you're interested and progressing but without being pushy if you want to put it that way is to ask questions as you say to reach out and to learn is it okay to ask people questions about the business.

Ann Ledwith 20:02

Absolutely. And I think most people will be happy to share with you. So, yeah, inquire and find out what's going on. I think that makes an awful lot of sense. Because, again, like I said earlier, it's context, I think you have to know where you're operating and where you're working, and what are the goals of the company? So what are the key aims of the company because you need to align yourself with that if you want to be moving up in a leadership or even in a management role in a company, you need to be aware of what their goals are.

Dusty Rhodes 20:30

My mind is just worrying with the amount of things that you're saying that I would have to learn about Android engineering is such a fast-paced industry and with so many different opportunities for learning, it can be a little bit overwhelming for some people, how should engineers approach their continued learning?

Ann Ledwith 20:47

Well, I mean, I would say you can't do everything. So I think sometimes you have to make choices. I can remember back, probably about 20 years ago, I put a lot of time into redesigning one of our programs. And we launched the program, and it was very successful, and I was very happy with it. And I could have decided to pursue that to stay on with that program to grow it to be the course director. But at the same time, there was an opportunity in working with continuous education, lifelong learning, and driving that. And I had to let go of something and decide to do something else to go with a lifelong learning piece because you can't do everything. And I think there are important kinds of inflection points in people's careers where they have to make decisions like that and decide, well, what's going to be taking me further apart? Am I really passionate about it? And I think when you've when you've made those decisions, then start looking at what kind of learning and what kind of upskilling you want, because it has to be relevant to you. But that's my opinion, that when you're moving forward in your career, and you've decided where you'd like your career to go, that's when you should be looking at what part of education what programs or courses can help me along the way with that.

Dusty Rhodes 21:54

So listen, tell me about you. Well, you're currently the director of UL at work, can you explain what kind of opportunities you are at work at present?

Ann Ledwith 22:02

UL as work is part of a program called the human capital and asset that was funded through the National Training Fund. So about four years ago, they open to competitive funds for universities to innovate and innovate in ways that were going to really support the development of skills and work closely with industry, looking at what kind of graduates do we need to produce. And what we did at Limerick is that we focus very much on professional education and postgraduate education. So you will at work has developed a range of programs, a lot of them are one-year part-time programs called professional diplomas, where people can upscale on areas, very diverse areas. So we've got programs in sustainability and communications and PR programs in strategic leadership in data analytics, in artificial intelligence. So there are there's a whole range of programs. But one of the things that we've done with that, which I think is a really great opportunity for students is that we've put in place a new masters called a Masters of Professional {ractice. And what the Masters is about is that you can pick any three of those professional diplomas that are going to suit your career, and you can put them together to get a master's. So you will do one of them in one year, you can do the second one, and then you can do the third one. And with your third one, you get your Masters. And it's proving really, really popular. And what it allows students to do is to really customize their learning. So we have, for example, we've had a very good program in aviation, leasing, and finance, and we've called a couple of good aviation programs, and students will do those. But they'll say, Well, actually, I need a bit of leadership with that as well. Or I need to find out about Lean, and how do I implement Lean in my company, so you'll get very diverse kind of mixes of diplomas and various of learning, but they make sense for a person's career. What we have is a structure that kind of scaffolds you through from microcredit to Masters, where you can pick a microcredit that's related to or that's part of one of these professional diplomas. Go ahead, do the professional diploma, once you know that, it's where you want to be, and then build three of these. And it goes back to my comment at the start about these kinds of pie shapes. The T-shaped professionals are now becoming pie-shaped professionals and maybe show professionals where you need a couple of deep dives and a few things, you need a couple of areas that you can say, well actually look, I can stand up and talk about that because I know that as well as having the transversal skills. And I think that's what our master's in professional practice does. It allows you to build, you know, up to three different areas that you know a lot about that you've advanced to kind of level nine to Masters level in a particular topic, but that you can bring them together kind of with some of these transversal skills,

Dusty Rhodes 24:50

the range of content of things that I can learn sounds amazing from the way you describe it and the fact that it can help my vision to move up in a career sounds amazing. I do want Want to be a leader that people are following me rather than being a manager with a hammer and playing Whack a Mole with employees all day. And the one thing that does worry me is the time elements. And it sounds great when you say it's a part-time when you're I've got a full-time job I've got, you know, three kids hanging out I've got a wife is always cranky, I made sure to mean, what kind of time commitment is there in here.

Ann Ledwith 25:23

We've been at this for a long time, and people can put in between 15 and 20 hours a week. And more than that isn't going to happen. So we can design any program we say and say there's 30 weeks studying that, it's not going to happen. As you say, for somebody who has children, a career, or a wife, sometimes older parents do all of these husband, Max, you'll be able to put in 15 hours a week, 15 to 20 hours a week. So you might put in an hour to kind of during the week after work, and then maybe one or two longer stints at the weekend. But you've got to get the balance right. And I think I suppose I'm comfortable talking about that, because I did my MBA, as I was managing things, I had my baby in the middle of my first child in the middle of my MBA, so I put a totally different color on the whole thing and trying to finish it off. It is doable, but you have to be focused on it. And I think one of the things that is quite nice about the model that we have is that you pit you take it one piece at a time, you know, so it's not saying you're committing to three years are you committing, you'll commit to one year and one year is actually two semesters and two semesters is to 15-week blocks. And you know, if you break it down like that, you can rationalize it and say, Okay, I will have a nice bit off at Christmas, I will have a short break at Easter, I've my summer off. So I think you have to keep that balance kind of between how you do everything

Dusty Rhodes 26:47

in the workplace, then how can managers and leaders that you're working with support you if you want to follow this journey of continued education,

Ann Ledwith 26:57

I think one of the key things is, you know, if you are getting on that journey of continuing education is to get the support from your manager because they need to know that you're doing this program. And they need to know that you might need a little bit of slack that you're not going to be working till eight o'clock, kind of three evenings a week, but that you need to finish up because we have more work to do. But I think part of that has to be a conversation with your manager about how this program is actually going to progress you and how it's going to help you. So it's not just that you're getting skills, but your company is getting skills, and the way an awful lot of our programs. And again, I know I'm talking about what we do at your will. But other universities have similar types of programs. But a lot of our programs are very linked to your business and linked to your workplace. So where you know, I take the lead program, it's a very good example, that as you're moving through Lean projects, your projects are requiring you to review your current working situation to look at how you can improve things. And in fact, on our lien program, the thesis that you do at the end has to make a particular contribution to your company. So you only get through with your thesis proposal, if you can show how it's going to save your company money or time or whatever it is, or improve things. And I mean, we've had some fantastic program projects there where people have saved hundreds of 1000s for the companies by being involved in a project like this. So I think the conversation very much has to be I want to do this program, it's going to help me it's going to help you this is how I'm going to bring this learning back into the workplace. And programs have to be designed like that.

Dusty Rhodes 28:29

That is almost how you start thinking like a leader because you're going home and you're saying to your partner, I want to do this extra work. Because after I will be able to do boom, which will bring benefit to us, then you're going into your employer and you're saying, I want to do this blah, blah, blah, and the benefits of the company will be bumped. And you're starting to be a leader then because you're sharing a vision for our people kind of go I want to be part of that. That's love the way you think.

Ann Ledwith 28:55

Yeah, no, it's very true. It's very true that you're looking at where this is taking me. But it's not just me. It's how it's improving the other things around me, very important.

Dusty Rhodes 29:05

If I'm considering taking on some more education in order to improve myself and to move forward. Where do I start? I mean, is there stuff that you're aware of with engineers, in Ireland? Is there stuff that I can find on your website with you? Well,

Ann Ledwith 29:21

yeah, I mean, there is stuff that you'd find on engineers, Ireland, and upskilling. But the government has actually done really good work over the last number of years and we were very supportive of people who want to go back to education. So our Springboard program is a fantastic place to start. And the springboard offers programs across the range, a whole pile of different areas. And they're pretty much you know, they're very well funded, but about 90% funded, and those are all open now. So, anybody who wants to go on to the Springboard web website, we see a whole range of programs. The other group that works really well with upscaling our skill nets and our skills are working across all the regions across all the different areas of technology. And they're also looking at what are the needs of the industry, what are the skills that they need. So those would be two very obvious places to go. But also on for any of the universities, I mean, now is the time where we're kind of coming to the end of our recruitment cycle for September. So depending on what you want to do, or where you want to go, if you go on to our URL website and look for postgraduate education, you will find a list of different programs that are available there. And you know, the same in any institution. 

Dusty Rhodes 30:32

You have affected me and I hope you have affected the person listening to the podcast at the moment in that I want to be a leader. I don't want to be a manager. I want to be a leader. And I find that everything that you've said has been very inspiring today. So thank you so much for sharing with us on the podcast today. Thank you. If you'd like to find out more about Ann and some of the topics that we did speak about today, you will find notes and link details in the show notes area of your player right now. And of course, you'll find more information and exclusive advanced episodes of our Engineers Ireland AMPLIFIED podcast on our website engineersireland. ie. Our podcast today was produced by DustPod.io for Engineers Ireland. If you'd like more episodes do click the Follow button on your podcast player right now to get access to all of our past and future shows automatically. Until next time, from myself, Dusty Rhodes, thank you for listening.

Leaning Into Learning and Leadership

The Future of Engineering Education

Our working world is rapidly changing and graduate programmes are changing also. We discover how new recruits are learning in a new way and what we as qualified professionals must do to keep up.

Giving us an insight into today’s university programs are Una Beagon, Head of Civil Engineering at the Technological University in Dublin and Maria Kyne Dean of the Faculty of Engineering in the Technical University of the Shannon.

Listen below or on your podcast player!

Topics we discussed include

02:07 How teaching engineering has changed 06:36 How engineering courses are assessed internationally and kept up-to-date
11:47 Why working closer with industry is developing critical thinking skills
16:21 Keeping up to date with technological advances.
19:09 Lifetime learning and problem-based learning.
29:44 The importance of lifelong learning.
35:03 What is the general attitude of employers to lifelong learning?
37:31 What to be afraid of in engineering.

Guest details

Dr Una Beagon is Head of Civil Engineering at TU Dublin and a Fellow of the Institution of Structural Engineers. Her research centres around using pedagogical initiatives to improve professional skills in engineering students. Her work has won several awards including a Teaching Fellowship, The Engineers Ireland Excellence Award, The SEFI Francesco Maffioli Award, the Le Chéile Gradam and A Teaching Hero Award from the National Forum.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-una-beagon-95566b18/

Dr Maria Kyne has 30 years of experience including being a Sydney Accord and Dublin Accord review member for the International Engineering Alliance for reviews of Engineering Professional Body organisations in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. Today she is Dean of the Faculty of Engineering in TUS.

Her research interests are in the area of Engineering Education Quality Assurance. Her publications investigate the possibilities of combining or aligning the current programmatic review and accreditation processes for engineering education.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0053-1050

More information

Links Una mentioned include:

Profess 12 - https://www.tudublin.ie/research/discover-our-research/profess12/about/
TrainEng-PDP - https://iiw.kuleuven.be/english/trainengpdp
A-Step 2030 - https://www.astep2030.eu/en
Engineer SDG - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03043797.2022.2033955

Looking for ways to explore or advance a career in the field of engineering? Visit Engineers Ireland to learn more about the many programs and resources on offer. https://www.engineersireland.ie/


Quotes

"Teaching engineering has changed considerably in the last 20 years. There was a time when the lecturer went up on the podium, gave the lecture and the students took what they could from it. Today, the lecturer becomes more of a facilitator of knowledge, skills and competencies. They have gone from being lecture-driven to more lab lectures, where a lot of the lectures are part of laboratory experiments and classes, especially in mechanical or electrical engineering areas. " Maria Kyne - TUS

“There's a lot of talk about AI generated papers being handed in and some lecturers have seen it. Their view is that it looks wrong as they know the students' work from being with them in class or elsewhere. But there have been dramatic changes to assessment methodologies in the last year or so. So, there will be either more ORS or more individually assigned projects where each student would have a slightly different problem to analyze.” Maria Kyne – TUS

“Programs are accredited by relevant professional bodies, including engineering and construction programs. These programs are assessed by the International Engineering Alliance, where we have international accords, such as the Washington Accord for Level 8 engineering programs, the Sydney Accord for Level 7 engineering programs, and the Dublin Accord for Level 6 engineering programs. Each country that is part of these signatory agreements is assessed, and their Level 8 degrees are compared to ours. Our Level 8 degrees, which are honours degrees, are on par with what is taught in Australia, America, Canada, and throughout the world for anyone who is part of these international engineering agreements. Most countries in the world have signed up to the Sydney Accord and the Washington Accord over the last 20-25 years, providing to some extent a harmonisation of engineering degrees and the standards of graduate attributes." Maria Kyne – TUS

TRANSCRIPTION

For your convenience, here is a 90% accurate AI transcription of the episode.

Dusty Rhodes  0:01 

Right now on Amplified, the Engineers Journal podcast, we're about to get into the challenges and opportunities in educating engineers for a rapidly changing world.

Una Beagon  0:11 

Any type of person can make a good engineer, that's the first thing I would say.

Maria Kyne  0:17 

There's something for everybody. Even if you end up in the wrong discipline of engineering, it's so easy to switch to another discipline. If somebody is interested in a particular area of engineering, they're more likely to succeed. Motivation beats knowledge any day,

Una Beagon  0:32 

I think that idea of just being a problem solver, then you can fix everything else, we will give you the skills to deal with the rest of it.

Dusty Rhodes  0:48 

Hi, there, my name is Dusty Rhodes, and you're welcome to Amplify, the Engineers Journal podcast. One of the amazing things about engineering is that things are constantly changing. And for many engineers, it's a part of their psyche, to keep up with the changing times. But how are things changing? And what is it that fresh graduates coming into the business have been learning? Or indeed, how have they been learning? And how can we as qualified and experienced professionals, keep up? To chat about this today, we have two hands on leaders in the field. Firstly, we have Una Beagon Head of Civil Engineering at the Technological University in Dublin. Una has a lot of career experience working as a consulting engineer in Ireland and abroad. Today to you she's focused on how teaching techniques can improve professional skills. Una, you're very welcome. Thanks very much. Also with us is Maria Kyne, who after working as a civil engineer for over 30 years, is currently Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment in the Technical University of the Shannon. Maria, thanks for joining us.

Maria Kyne  1:54 

Thank you dusty.

Dusty Rhodes  1:55 

Just before we get into the academic side of things, you both have a huge amount of real world engineering experience. And perhaps you can give us a quick synopsis of your career before you ended up into you Dublin.

Una Beagon  2:07 

Sure, yeah. I guess I was quite lucky. I knew from when I was around 14 years old, I think that I wanted to be an engineer. So in that sense, I was very committed. And I did my degree in civil engineering and worked as a consultant for 20 years in Belfast and then London and then back in Dublin. So I've had a great range of experience worked on some fabulous projects with great teams over the last 20 years or so.

Dusty Rhodes  2:34 

And tell me the story of why you were dragged back into university life.

Una Beagon  2:40 

Yeah, that's a funny one. I'm not sure if Maria's story is the same but I loved being a consultant. I never saw academia in my life plan and then the recession hit and of course everyone gets nervous in the recession. And I had been doing some part time lecturing in the evenings while I was working and I just really enjoyed it I got a great sense of job satisfaction from it. So when a job came up, I applied for it and was very happy to come in as a as an assistant lecturer originally entity Dublin. So that was the crux I was about 10 years ago.

Dusty Rhodes  3:15 

And Maria, yourself before to you have the shovel.

Maria Kyne  3:19 

And I was my professional experience began as a civil engineering consists in a civil engineering consultancy in the UK before joining NUI G as a civil engineering lecturer. So I then moved on to Limerick and became a lecturer in project management and then back to to where I started as a lecturer, and then became head of department and finally dean of faculty.

Dusty Rhodes  3:45 

Well, listen, tell me in universities today, would you say that the process of teaching has changed a lot in the last 20 years?

Maria Kyne  3:53 

Yes, I think the teaching has changed considerably in the last 20 years. And in many ways, I suppose the more significant is that there was a time when the lecturer went up on the podium and gave the lecture and the students took what they could from it. Nowadays, the lecturers see themselves as facilitators of learning, where they're helping students to absorb the knowledge and this and so a lot of the information that used to be transmitted by lecturers previously, is sent out before the lectures and they have that available to them up in virtual learning environments, and such as Moodle, or Blackboard. And the students have the information it's absorbing and understanding and doing the engineering that we focus on. So the practical skills and getting the students to understand and comprehend and do calculations so that they can understand what they're learning. And so the lecturer becomes more a facilitator of the knowledge, skills and competencies. So he has gone from being lecture driven lectures to more lab lectures, where a lot of the lectures now are part of laboratory experiments and laboratory classes where students have, as part of the lecture, they might work on a piece of equipment if it's in the mechanical engineer or electrical engineering areas. So it's that sort of a change.

Dusty Rhodes  5:23 

So it's kind of upside down. So it's back in the day when I when I was in a learning environment where you kind of do all the paperwork and the books at home. And then you go into the class and you and you're able to ask questions and everything with the professor's pardon me? How do you see things have changed in the last 1015 years?

Una Beagon  5:42 

Yeah, I would agree with Maria. It used to be very teacher centered, it was all about what the teacher did. And that was that idea of the sage on the stage. And it's very much changed to a student centered concept now where it's all about what the student does. And, and the terminology is was is the guide on the side that that's the role of the lecture. And I. And one of the things I think that's interesting about that is, back when I was at college, the professor had all of the information. And I sat in class trying to write down all of the notes to get that information. And with the Internet, now, information is available at our fingertips. And so we're trying to expose our students to ways to develop what we might call critical thinking skills, being able to discern what's important or what's not important, or what's accurate, and what's inaccurate on the Internet, because that's freely available information is both a challenge and something to be careful about.

Dusty Rhodes  6:36 

Have either of you noticed an influx of AI generated papers being handed in?

Maria Kyne  6:43 

There's a lot of talk about this, and some lecturers have seen it. And their view basically is that it looks wrong, you know, that they either know the students work from either being with them in class or elsewhere. And when it comes to something like that, like the the chat GBT or other assessment tools come in, then the it looks wrong to the lecture, the lecture can recognise for the most part, but they have to, I mean, there will be dramatic changes to assessment methodologies in the last year or so. So that you either have more ORS or more individually assigned projects, where the each leg, each student would have a slightly different problem to analyse.

Dusty Rhodes  7:32 

So AI and digital tools and Internet is is one thing, how have things changed in the last 1015 years with collaborating, collaborating between yourself and students or students collaborating with each other?

Una Beagon  7:45 

Yeah, I think there's been a much more recognition in recent years about the importance of collaborative working, and multidisciplinary, working and working in teams. And certainly, there's an awful lot of our modules now which have group projects in them. And we provide scaffolding to the students to help them learn how to work in a team. I have a few of examples of that, that we could maybe talk about later. But one of the aspects that we might talk about is the focus, I guess, between the balance of what we might call technical engineering skills, and other skills, which we might call professional skills or non technical skills. And they are quite important as well. So it's important that we expose our students to opportunities to practice those skills. In addition to the technical skills, collaborative working multidisciplinary working are two good examples of those.

Maria Kyne  8:33 

Yeah, the engineers Ireland accreditation process highlights the need for both the professional and the technical skills. So when they they accredit engineering programs, they're looking for both, and they're looking for a student's exposure to both the technical and professional skills.

Dusty Rhodes  8:52 

Now one thing I always hear about Ireland, I think it's been beaten into me as a child is that we are the land of saints and scholars and that we do doctors and engineering and universities better than any other country in the entire world. What is the reality? I know we do have a good reputation. But how are our courses here actually assessed internationally.

Maria Kyne  9:15 

We are part of engineers, Ireland and our programs are accredited by the relevant professional bodies, the engineering and construction programs. They in turn, are assessed by the International Engineering Alliance where we have international Accords, such as the Washington record for level eight engineering programs, the Sydney accord for level seven engineering programs or the Dublin record for level six engineering programs, and each country who are part of these signatory agreements. They are assessed that their level eights are similar to ours. So we're our level eight, our level eight which would be the honours degrees, they are on par With what is taught and how it's taught in, in Australia, America, Canada, throughout the world, anyone who's part of these international engineering agreements, and most countries in the world over the last 2025 years have signed up to the Sydney accord and the dot Washington accord. And that has provided to some extent a harmonisation of engineering degrees and the standards, the graduate standards, which we call the graduate attributes,

Dusty Rhodes  10:33 

it sounds very high level politics, when you talk about how these big cities records and stuff like that, how do they actually kind of agree that the level of course in one country is equivalent to one in Ireland? 

Maria Kyne  10:45 

I am an international reviewer. So what happens is that three international reviewers from different countries go to for instance, I was on one in the in the UK there recently for the Sydney accord. And we visit three colleges for trade Sydney accord was level seven soldiers, they incorporate engineer in the UK. And we look at three programs that would be fighting students with qualifications which they could use towards becoming a cooperation's engineer. And we looked at all their learning outcomes, we looked at how these programs were accredited, and we looked at the way our the way the programs are being examined, accredited, similar to the way we do it in Ireland, and the standards, are they similar? And we write a report then that goes to the IEA. And they decide whether the UK EC, the Engineering Council UK, gets the accreditation for, gets to be a member of the Sydney accord?

Dusty Rhodes  11:47 

And does this mean that you have to travel to Sydney?

Maria Kyne  11:50 

No, it's all online. Now in the in the pre COVID days, there was a time where you travelled internationally. But nowadays it's it's so much more convenient to do something like that online.

Dusty Rhodes  12:03 

Yeah, sometimes. Trip to Sydney, I don't care how inconvenient it is. But I mean, that's it's good, though, that there is kind of a committee and its people from different countries and regions. And and there is a consensus there. And that's how you're seeing how the causes are recognised internationally. However, things are changing so fast in the in the world, how are the courses kept up to date?

Maria Kyne  12:29 

Well, we it's all about accreditation criteria, and the accreditation criteria change regularly, in relation to the needs and changes in the in the wider world out there. For instance, the accreditation criteria of engineers Ireland has sought have embraced sustainability in a new way they've project embraced engineering management in a new way, in the latest revision, which was only a year ago, two years ago now.

Dusty Rhodes  12:57 

And again, an example of how they did that.

Maria Kyne  13:00 

They put in another program outcome and each engineering program must have must have examples of how they teach that program outcome to students.

Dusty Rhodes  13:10 

Owner, let me catch up with yourself because I'm thinking now kind of the future and what's going to happen next. What kind of skills do you think that engineers are going to need, and to learn and to have another under their belt in the future?

Una Beagon  13:26 

And I was recently involved in an Erasmus Plus a European project called a step 2030. And we asked that very question. So we held focus groups, with academics, with students and with industrial employers in four different European countries, to really look into the future, at what skills engineers would need to help solve the SDGs the sustainable development goals in particular. And what we find is that skills come out in sort of three funnels, let's say. The first was technical skills, which absolutely engineers need. The second was non technical skills. And what we mean by that are skills like outward facing skills, people orientated skills, things like intercultural skills, collaboration, leadership, negotiation, an inward facing skills, things of things like critical thinking, lifecycle thinking, systems thinking, ways of thinking. And the final funnel was about attitudes or their attitudes towards their world view, global awareness, social responsibility, sustainability, awareness, and also their character and ethical orientation. So things like are they agile and adaptable, open minded? We ended up I think, with 54 different skills that engineers need to so you might ask this later, but the challenges of academia I think that's one of them.

Dusty Rhodes  14:48 

I was gonna ask you about that now. Because I mean, yeah, it's one thing talking about, you know, what the engineers need to learn. You guys need to teach us so so I mean, what new teaching methods do you have of our technologies are you using to get these skills across?

Una Beagon  15:03 

Yeah, I think that's an interesting one. Because I don't think that one answer answers everything, I think we've got to go at it with different approaches, I guess. One of the other projects that I'm working on is called profess 12 styles, professional skills for engineering students to solve SDG 12. It's a UTA funded project with Ulster University as part of the North side's program. So we're trying to build connections between engineering students in the north and in the sides. And as part of that summer school, we're looking specifically at opportunities for students to develop two things, one being the engineering skills to solve SDG 12. And also a clear focus on intercultural skills. Because I think one of the things of the future is that engineers can no longer just sit at their desk with their head down and do calculations. It used to be that case, maybe 30 years ago, now engineers have to be much more externally focused, aware of the social impact of their designs, and that requires a different set of skills. So this summer school that we're in the middle of designing at the moment, we're going to run workshops on the circular economy, things like debates on the SDGs, to really to help students develop those skills of speaking and collaborating and getting the message out there. Much more than just engineering technical skills.

Maria Kyne  16:25 

We also work closer with industry than we used to, in in, you know, 2030 years ago, we have greater links with industry, industry, need engineering graduates, so they're happy to work with us to try and give us the knowledge that we need and the equipment that we need, so that the graduates when they graduate have the skills that industry require. So we have lots of new ways of interacting with industry such as the regional skills for that were set up. In recent years such as the we have an explorer engineering, which was formerly known as the limerick for engineering group. And that's where we have the engineering industries in the Midwest region, they come together, and they try our mission is to try and increase the quality and quantity of engineers and technicians in the Midwest, so that they are available for industry. So industry tell us what they want, what skill sets they need. And there is a big focus on the professional skills that engineers the need, because most people who do engineering are quite good on the kind of the maths, the technical skills, they will naturally get that. But they want people to be more aware of the social skills and the professional skills.

Dusty Rhodes  17:45 

So how's this working out for everybody, because it's not just a work placement or work experience kind of thing. It's obviously more advanced than that. In what way,

Una Beagon  17:55 

I think there's a couple of different ways, I might give you one example of what we call problem based learning. So this is a Friday afternoon class with our first year engineers, and they work in a studio, we break them into groups of about five or six people. And the problem is that they have to design a pedestrian bridge to span I think it's six meters in a disaster scenario in a in a country that has just experienced, you know, an earthquake or something full stop. So off the student goes, they have to do research on what materials are available in that country, they have to do research on flood history, so they can calculate the depth of the trust and how far it should be above the water level, and so on. And we give them little mini lectures on how to design a bridge and that type of thing. But at the end of this problem based learning, they get the opportunity to construct a full scale bridge and we tested often pond boat street, so it's fun, you know, and they really engage in the project because they're not sitting in a lecture theatre, listening about stuff. So I think that whole idea of teaching them the skills to learn, look learning to learn, they're, they're only in college for three or four years. That's only the basic foundation of what they're going to do in life. So lifelong learning is really important. And they shouldn't constantly be looking at the lectures for the answers, they have to kind of take control and engage in their own learning. So that idea of learning to learn so that problem based learning idea is one example that we use, Maria may well have more

Maria Kyne  19:25 

it keeping up to date with technological advances to is very important, you know, because there's new and emerging themes from time to time towards renewable energy a few years ago, sustainable development now climate action is growing. precision engineering is a growing area, so it's keeping up to date with all the new technological advances in these areas is very important so that the students have the knowledge and know how to operate these machines or beam forward. Construction and built environment area. So it they're all new software, software comes out, it's in, it's involved for a number of years, then something better comes out, it's involved for a number of years, and so on, so forth. So you're all the time changing, improving, getting better systems that help us do our work. And that makes us more efficient.

Dusty Rhodes  20:26 

And so if the tools are changing all the time, how are you able to keep up with your teaching methods and the technologies that you were using to teach people how to do use these tools,

Maria Kyne  20:37 

it's, again, it's interaction with industry, interaction with professional bodies, interaction with with students going out industries, all the staff have connections with industry, they're doing research with industry, either through research projects, such as level eight, or level nine students are in industry and the staff are working with industries, and solving industry problems with the assistance of the students doing the research.

Dusty Rhodes  21:08 

So we have the example of you have to build a bridge in a war torn country or a disaster area, our industry people like here in Ireland that you're working with actually saying, you know, we have these interesting day to day problems, like there's a bug and we need to put a warehouse on it. And you need to figure that out how they come to you with kind of problems like that. And they're telling you, that's the problem. And we need it to be solved using a, b and c.

Una Beagon  21:33 

Absolutely. And I think as Maria said, that relationship with industry has gotten much closer in the last 15 or 20 years, and particularly not so much at first year for really just getting the engineering students in the door. But on their final year project where they're really going into depth and are some research, we absolutely do joint collaborative projects with industry. And I think as Maria mentioned, that's where that technological advancement and keeping up to date really comes in. Yeah.

Dusty Rhodes  22:00 

Now each of you are tied with this specific university. Is this something just with the universities you're associated with? Or is it something that is across the board with universities across Ireland?

Maria Kyne  22:11 

Yeah, I know, there's a strong alliance with the IU at the end as a strong alliance with the technological universities. We've all known each other for numerous years. And we meet regularly the heads of School of Engineering in the Eye Institute of Technology, as was, they all meet once every two or three months share information share, learning, and that we found to be very helpful. And it's kind of information exchange across the university sector. And the institute of technology sectors was,

Una Beagon  22:48 

and just as Maria mentioned, actually engineers, Ireland organise a coffee morning at the start of every semester, which is just an online coffee morning. And that is just a mind of information. Because we know all of the faces from around the country, we're involved in a lot of, you know, through accreditation through professional bodies. So that's a great place to hear what's going on and to realise that maybe your challenges are, are shared by others. So yeah, it's a great network of people that I've come across.

Dusty Rhodes  23:15 

Let me ask you, because you have such a huge responsibility in your head, both of you a huge responsibility in your hands, but you because you're shaping how engineer is going to be taught in the future. And I love how you're gonna particularly look at teaching, and how people have different ways of learning. We all take things in different ways. Some people are good at listening, some people are good at reading, some people are good with their eyes. Can you give me some examples of new teaching methods and technologies that are being used to teach to take these things into account?

Una Beagon  23:48 

Yeah, it's interesting that you mentioned that actually, I'm reminded of a course I undertook probably last year. There's a concept called universal design for learning that you might have heard of, it's called UDL. It was originally I think, proposed by a guy called David Rose. And it's a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn, including students with disabilities. And I did a course by a head who are this independent nonprofit organisation, which have fabulous courses on UDL. And I originally did it because I wanted to be more inclusive and what my connections were with students. But really, I learned an awful lot about myself from having done it. So just as you mentioned dusty, it's all about giving students an opportunity either to assimilate the information in different ways or produce learning outcomes or evidence of learning outcomes in different ways. And I'll give you an example of what I did in a minute. But what I realised about myself is I am a reader. I would much rather read a document, then have to watch a video because I get so impatient watching a video is quicker, go quicker. Whereas with a document I can scan It really quickly I know whether it's relevant or not. So I learned a lot about myself. But the example that I might give you is, in my role, I get a lot of emails from students with questions about different things. And one thing that comes up a lot is how to read their exam results. So it's not just as simple as what the mark is, we have codes on it, we have rules on compensating, and so on. And so as part of the UD Dale UDL experience, I created different ways of explaining how to read your exam results. So we had things like I created a Word document with Arial font, because that's better for students with decks dyslexia, I sent the Word document, not the PDF, because then students can increase the font size, if they find it easier to read. And I created a video, I did a voiceover and I give the students the information in all of these different ways. And it got great feedback, because as I say, I learned myself, I have a way I like to learn. So that was really, you know, a new new information for myself. So just to bring that in to how we assess students, I think things are changing. I think the idea that students can only prove that they've met the learning outcomes from writing an essay and handing it up is is quite old. I think at this stage, I think lots of universities are realising the benefit of giving students different opportunities to prove they've met the learning outcomes. And as part of a summer school that Iran, last year, we had students do a project on what is the future of engineering education look like. But we give them an option to tell us that in whatever way they wanted. And we had some students who created a skit, and it was really entertaining and really engaging. We had others that created a cartoon animation. And it was absolutely fantastic. And I think just getting to that position, where we're saying writing an essay is not the only way that you can prove you have met a learning outcome is really novel. So

Dusty Rhodes  26:59 

I'm quite fascinated with an area of study that you have done or done or whether you did briefly, are you going into it very deeply. And it's a tough one to say, phenomena geography, which measures how different people experience things or phenomena in different ways. And as you were saying, some people will prefer watching a video to reading a text. And my question is, when you're asking people you tried to study how people take it in, how do you measure it? That's, that's a heck of a challenge in my head, how do you actually quantify and measure that?

Una Beagon  27:34 

Yeah, that's, that's a good question. I suppose I would come back to say, you can't measure it. So when I was looking at the phenomenographic study that I undertook was how lecturers consider what are professional skills? And how do we teach them? So you don't really ask them? What do you think professional skills? Are you ask them questions around the subjects, and they answer it in an interview form. And then you analyse that as a kind of a detracted observer to see what are the differing ways that people experienced this. So when you say, measure it against the word I would use as they revealed, whatever their thoughts were through this interview process. And then I took that on board and wrote that up in a kind of a thesis, I guess. And one of the interesting things that I find actually, in that piece of research was I was looking at the different ways that lecturers teach professional skills, without asking them that question. And it varied from things like transmitting knowledge. So far, they're the expert, and they're telling the students so that's the lecture form, we're used to that. And also practising where you're in a workshop, like Maria mentioned, and you're practising, pinning the theory into practice, mirroring the industry environment, those types of projects where we give students a project to do, but the top one really they came out as the overarching way of teaching professional skills was role modelling. So that was quite interesting. The fact that what a lecturer does every day and how they interact with students is a role model on how to act professionally.

Dusty Rhodes  29:09 

Maria, let me come back to you and let's kind of I suppose it's following on from from what owners saying about role models and stuff like that, the whole idea of apprenticeships and working with companies here in Ireland and getting real, you know, kind of hands on and you're surrounded by the kind of people that you want to be like, yeah, it's one of the phrases I've heard growing up hanging out with the people you want to be like, so this whole apprenticeship thing. How, while somebody is doing an apprenticeship, are you able to balance theory and practical experience?

Maria Kyne  29:44 

Yes. All apprenticeships are the traditional apprenticeships have. test phases, there's seven phases in the traditional apprenticeships. Three of them are in an educational environment. So the first phase is you're out of work for a certain period of time, then you come into an EPB for 22 weeks on phase two, then you're out of work again for around six months, then you come back into t you for one semester, it's about a 12 week term, then you go out again to industry for another six months, then you come back in again to to you for phase six. So it's a learning phase again, and then you're back out working in industry for the final phase, phase seven. So those are the traditional ways in which apprenticeship have been taught, be it for carpentry, joinery, electrical, plumbing, anything like that. But there are a whole range of new apprenticeships now. And there are certain criteria, there must be between two and four years in duration. And they must have at least 50% of the time in the work environment. So there's two types really, of apprenticeship that have emerged, either somebody comes on site one to two days a week in an educational environment, and dads the other days at work, or they come on, like you do for the traditional apprenticeship where you have a block of time, and they're in an education environment. But again, it is an in and out process. So there might be five phases or more in an apprenticeship, depending on the duration of the apprenticeship. And where the shoot the apprentice is in and out of an educational environment. They're in a work environment. So it's on the job, or they're off the job, where they're in an educational environment. And they're doing more theory based stuff. So it's a mixture. And it's part of their learning experience, where they're going off the job on the job of the job on the job. So the two are mixing as they gain experience in their apprenticeship. So the standard traditional craft based apprenticeship is four years. Both the new apprenticeships can be anything from two to four years, depending on which level in the Q Qi national framework of qualifications, the apprenticeship is, and also quite experienced, the student or the apprentice had before they joined the apprenticeship.

Dusty Rhodes  32:20 

Here's a strange question for you, Maria, do you think that as we continue on throughout our careers, and we're fully professional engineers, that we should take an apprenticeship every couple of years,

Maria Kyne  32:32 

I think it would be a great idea. And if it could be managed, I think you would be hired for somebody to be at work for two years, then go and do an apprenticeship come back in again, I don't think he could be rigorous. But it probably could be encouraged in the workplace. But I think it would be a great idea, especially for someone like ourselves, which we're out of industry for a while, that every so often. So hence, the sabbatical system that was always there helps and supports that it allows academics, to dip in and out of industry at regular periods to keep up to date.

Dusty Rhodes  33:12 

I know because he often think of apprenticeship when you're in your university years, but you never think of it like you when you've been placed with a firm for 10 years, or you're working professionally for 10 years. And it wouldn't be great to go off. And, you know, kind of, of course, I'd want to do my apprenticeship in Sydney.

Una Beagon  33:29 

I think that idea of lifelong learning No, just stay is an important one. I mean, I don't know about Maria. But after you become a an engineering graduate, then the next step is to become chartered. So you do all of that. And I mean, in my own case, I went back and did a PhD in my 40s. And I thought I was done with education way before that. And even now doing that ahead course last week, or last year, and so on, it's really important to keep up our skills. They talk about everyone having three careers in their lifetime. And that's going to really change quite dramatically. Because there's some statistics out there that people who are at school at this stage, half of the jobs haven't even been created yet. So, you know, it's difficult for them to choose a course. So I think recognising that, that we need to be lifelong learning lifelong learners is really important. And I gotta get a final plug in for a different project that I'm working on. It's an Erasmus Plus funded project with colleagues in KU Leuven in Belgium and l ut in Finland, called train Inge PDP. And it's all about training engineers for lifelong learning skills through a personal development process. And engineers Ireland are actually one of the supporters of this project because we're trying to make that transition from, you know, being a student, getting your degree going out into industry, and then suddenly, you're faced with, you know, continuing professional development, we're trying to make that a little bit more seamless. So we're working on some pilot interventions in the classroom with students to try to help them develop these lifelong learning skills of refection and planning and so on. And And earlier in their career then once they get into industry

Dusty Rhodes  35:03 

x that's a train a p dp for personal development process. Yeah. And while you're while you're here on the podcast is selling your wares una, you must profess 12 You said it was a summer school, I when I think of a summer school, I'm immediately thinking of myself as a little boy in the woods somewhere, whatever for a couple of weeks. Sure, it is not like that. How does the summer school work?

Una Beagon  35:27 

Yeah, it's a five day summer school school for 10 Engineering students from to Dublin and 10 engineering students from Ulster University. And we're spending two and a half days up in Belfast and two and a half days in Dublin. And we're looking at different workshops and things that we can put in place for these five days, it's going to be really intense for the students. And it's an extra curricular activity for them. But I mean, to have something like that on their CV as they go for job interviews would be fantastic. So I really fingers crossed, it's gonna go well, but planning is going well, so far. Anyway,

Dusty Rhodes  35:59 

rad, we'll have links for those in the show notes. So if you're listening on your podcast player, or phone or whatever, at the moment, it's all in there in the description for you. You've kind of touched it, you've both actually touched on a thing there where it's continuous professional development, and we're getting older and kind of learning things. It must mean for you guys that the diversity of students that you're dealing with is just changing all the time, you've got people at different stages of their lives, you've got him or her they, you've got the people who want different things out of their career and stuff like that. How are universities keeping up with different course programs to handle this range of people? Maria,

Maria Kyne  36:41 

yes. And we have a lot of students who do courses by, by flexible learning, we call it where they're taking courses at night courses at the weekends, mostly online courses. And if you're talking about people who are doing lifelong learning, a lot of them have have a degree or a working towards a degree. And if they have a degree, a lot of them are doing online, master's programs. And they find that works well for them in the online programs. And we have been very successful on the online master's programs and a lot of international students. They like to come to Ireland to do our online master's programs. And we find they're very Sikhs, were very successful in recruiting international students for online master's programs.

Dusty Rhodes  37:31 

And what is the general attitude of employers, when you're looking at this additional part time education for yourself as well as doing your job?

Maria Kyne  37:39 

I think the regional skills for have helped because they have strengthened the link between industries and education. And they have helped employers see the benefits of the lifelong learning. And they're working with employers to show them the funding streams that can support them to have their staff being being further developed. So employers are all for staff getting better skills, but they just weren't aware of the funding opportunities to skills, nets and other other mechanisms that were available to them to help them upskill their employees. So I regional skills form have played a huge role in helping that along over in recent years.

Dusty Rhodes  38:25 

So if I'm working in a firm, and there's no real kind of clear further education or personal development program, and I want to suggest it, what do you think I should Google what what should I search on Google just to get more information? What phrase would you use?

Maria Kyne  38:42 

flexible learning flexible learning? Course Yeah, yeah. All right. Okay,

Dusty Rhodes  38:49 

part time courses on flexible learning. All right. Listen, it's absolutely fascinating chatting to the peer review and getting it from the point of view of people who are teaching the next generation of engineers who are coming down the line, and also the engineers who are in the business at the moment. I've got one final question for each of you. And it's, it's a bit of a zinger. Alright. I hate to ask him double barrelled questions, but I'm going to ask you one. Alright. So as you can decide who wants to go first on this? The question is, from what you see that is coming down the line, from an engineering perspective. What do you think we should be afraid of? And what should we look forward to?

Maria Kyne  39:25 

Okay, I'm going to start this one. Okay. I think the what we don't need to be afraid of anything because all the challenges we've had to face as engineers, we've been able to overcome them. So I don't envisage anything to be afraid of climate action may need a lot of work. But I do think we can come to some solution around that keeping up to date with industry advances and technological advances, and also the synergies between what we call a traditional engineer In disciplines, that's an area we'll have to get into. In terms of the good stuff, the benefits, I think we have our collaborations with industry, with other higher education institutions. They're improving all the time. And with the global communication through accreditation and research, I think that's very positive, and I think can only help help us all going forward.

Dusty Rhodes  40:25 

And only for yourself, what do you think we should look forward to? And what should we fear?

Una Beagon  40:30 

Yeah, a bit like Maria, I don't think we have anything to fear. I think our experience during the COVID pandemic has showed us that we are perseverant. And we have grits, and we're agile. So, I mean, the only thing we know is that change is inevitable. And once we accept that, it's like, Okay, what's next? So we'd see these as challenges. I think, the thing that I'm looking forward to most I think, maybe Maria feels the same, I get such joy out of going to graduation, and seeing the students who have been in college for three or four years come through and graduate and turn into engineers. And it's a really bright future. They're just great students. So I think that's what I'm looking forward to. They're going out into the world 30 years after I did with a whole different mindset and a whole different set of attitudes towards the environment and stay in sustainability. So that's what I'm looking forward to see what their impact is on our building stock and on our planet.

Dusty Rhodes  41:24 

Una Beagon, Head of Civil Engineering as the Technological University in Dublin and Maria Kyne, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the Technical University of the Shannon, thank you both so much for joining us.

Maria Kyne  41:36 

You're very welcome.

Dusty Rhodes  41:39 

If you'd like to find out more about what we spoke about on the podcast today, you will find notes and link details that we mentioned in the show notes area on your podcast player on your smartphone right now. And of course you'll find more information and advanced episodes of our podcast on the website at EngineersIreland.ie

Our podcast today was produced by dustpod.io for Engineers Ireland. If you'd like more episodes, do click the Follow button on your podcast player to get access to all our past and future shows automatically. Until next time for myself, Dusty Rhodes. Thank you for listening.

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