Hi Gareth,

It's great to hear of your enthusiasm for creating a network of engineers in the Philippines.  If you find there is interest in a national online group, you can request a new Phillippines group be set-up on this platform. 


If you wanted to get some community activities going, as William said, Present Around the World is a great place to start.  If you're not aware of it, it's a presentation competition aimed at young professionals and students, and is a highlight of a lot of Local Networks' calendars.


CC-AP may be able to help with funding, although not with subsidised student memberships.  If you'd like to formally request some funds to run an event, then perhaps send myself a private message (or even better, Derek Boardman, the CC-AP finance lead), and we can see what we can do.


I hope that helps?


Cheers,

Karla Smith

CC-AP Chairperson

Hi Karla, when and where will the AP PATW regional final be held?


Getting travel documents arranged in the Philippines can litterally take months as I'm sure Gareth knows.

The AP PATW regional final is going to be in Sydney in August.  It may be getting too late to organise an event for the Philippines this year, I'm not sure? 


If not, getting funding would be the first step - there will be costs associated with this, including flight to the regional final, prizes for the winner, etc


If it is too late this year, then requesting funding for next year is still a good first step :)


As I said, Derek Boardman is our finance lead for Asia-Pacific, so sending him a private message is a good starting place.


Cheers,

Karla

Sorry for late replies, lots of distractions including typhoons and an extended spell in the UK selling up in Bournemouth and moving to the Isle of Wight! Not to mention the dire internet services here in Mindoro. No I don't want to fund student or anyone doing degrees here as to get this far they normally (*sadly for some) already well funded. I just want to get the Philippine institutions and the IET talking to each other and yes sharing platforms and transfers of technology perhaps.


 Extensive parts of the Philippines have a severe lack in gross capita income category i.e. they are considered poor! I am always asked to subsidise or pay for my wife's relatives tertiary education which normally leads to a college bachelors degree. The net result is, as a graduate, usually they end up in a call centre or some exploitive position. My wife's nephew recently obtained his professional board registration as a Civil engineer, only to be offered an OJT (internship at a small salary) just to sign off other folks work, needless to say he declined on my advice although he saw it as a normal route for his chosen career.


i have contacts with other more established professional engineers but I really need a credible contact into one of the top Universities to discuss their iown qualifications accreditation and opportunities to link with the U.K. Registrations as they are considered global. Unfortunately money talks here and often Engineers end up in politics (where the big money is) and of course select families get all the opportunities.


regarding Visas to the UK for Filipinas/Filipnos it is a nightmare and marriage acts as another bar on achieving this as the UK Immigration folk are paranoid about letting in honest visitors from the Philippines yet welcome anyone arriving under a truck it seems. My wife is asked every time we arrive in the UK if she has any intention of staying, the stock answer is you are joking especially with the weather, anyway we have return tickets! I reply the same having experienced bronchitis every January until I saw the light and decided to winter here. So we don't have a spouse visa just a 10 year visitor visa which is perfect for the above reasons, even so lots of hoops, form filling, interviews etc and trick questions before we got this. She even had to go on a course to understand the British when she arrived! She knew more than the guy running the seminar and put him right on a few things. This cost the equivalent of £5.00 and involved transport to Manila for a couple of days.


Ah well such is life here, never dull and always expect the unexpected, you will never be disappointed. But seriously I have recently been elected to the Council for the Institute of Mesurement and Controls on top of several other extra things and my free time is becoming rarer than ever. So anyone in the Philippines want to get together with like minded others it will have to be in Manila and somehow arranged in line with the enthusiasm shown. Please feel free to contact me via email at gbingham@theiet.org.


Cheers: Gareth


Sorry I wrote this on my phone so there may be typos galore and nonsense words as the spell chocker is not great and I suffer from fat finger syndrome to boot.


best regards

If you're using the clone of 7671 in the middle east I assume you're in Qatar or UAE as their local regulations are almost copy paste.

Having a home in North Cotabato I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on Philippine Wiring standards vs BS7671. I couldn't even buy any form of connector in Midsayap, and the electricity company didn't even provide any earth when they connected power to my house.


I have to sink my own ground rod and I haven't had to splice stranded cables for over 40 years.


Best regards


Bill