Recently it was my four year anniversary at the IET and it made me reflect on one of my favourite aspects of working here - getting to learn about exciting developments around engineering and technology that are yet to hit the mainstream news but will inevitably affect me and my family in the future.

The IET benefits from having around 100 Local Networks around the world, run by volunteers, that aim to inform and inspire non-engineers to perhaps take an interest or potentially choose it as a future career. One area that I feel IET Local Networks excel in is highlighting future challenges for society and looking at the engineering and technology solutions to solve them. Or to put it another way they are looking at how engineering and technology will effect real people’s lives in the future.


This makes IET Local Networks not just an important part of the engineering community also but wider society. And whats more, the 1500 events around the world they organised last year were mostly free to attend for anyone - not just members of the organisation.


I'm keen that we bring IET Local Networks much more to the public's attention and we are therefore starting a new series of insight pieces called Society Insights (get it?). These insight pieces will be taking some of the key challenges identified by Local Networks at their events that society will face in the future such as energy supply, transportation, water and food resources and waste management (to name just a few) and summarise some of the key points from experts.

The first in the SocIETy series is from the IET London Local Network that ran an event a few months ago on the Circular Economy. Please do have a read and if it inspires you to learn more then find your nearest Local Network and perhaps come along to a future event...