Bosch Ulwazi’s 2019 Engineer-in-Training (EIT) Conference was held in Mt Edgecombe recently. At this annual event, graduates are given an interactive platform to showcase the knowledge and skills they have acquired from projects they have worked on during the year.

“Bosch Ulwazi’s EIT programme was developed to provide opportunities for candidates to boost their practical engineering competency, to meet the Engineering Council of South Africa’s (ECSA’s) requirements for professional registration, over a period of three years from graduation,” explains Balan Govender, managing director, Bosch Ulwazi, a member of the Bosch Holdings group of multi-disciplinary consulting engineering companies. “Although this programme focuses on the development of graduate engineers and project managers, the course content is also re-modelled for graduates in other disciplines, including human resources, quantity surveyors and financial graduates. The programme also assists experienced engineers and project managers with their professional registrations.

“We are very proud to play an important role in education and skills development in South Africa, particularly in light of the current shortage of skills.

“The implementation of skills development programmes and compliance with accredited quality management systems, has been central to expanding our capabilities to include multi-disciplinary consulting, project engineering and operational management services - not only in Africa, but globally.”

A highlight of the EIT programme is the annual conference, where graduates give presentations on projects they have been involved in. This year’s winner was Aury Livingstone, for his presentation on “Thinking big in a small economy.” Second place went to Stuart Booysen, for his address on “So uhm, could you please explore an alternative solution?” Portia Malindi won third prize for her topic, “Mitigating big losses on small projects.”

Managing Director of Bosch Holdings, Mike Gibbon, had this to say: “The quality of the presentations at the 11th Bosch EIT conference was of an exceptionally high standard and I was particularly impressed with everyone’s passion for innovation and making a lasting impact on our communities. For the second year in a row, the majority of engineers involved with the programme are ladies. This is a really encouraging trend and bodes well for the future diversity of our Group.”

The EIT programme currently covers six phases – orientation, site exposure, design, project management, knowledge of other disciplines and applicable legislation.

Since the introduction of the EIT programme in 2010, graduates have worked on Group projects in South Africa, Brazil, India, Barbados, Tanzania, Swaziland, China, Oman and Kenya.

Bosch Ulwazi facilitates the advancement of engineering skills, by providing solutions for engineer development and technical training, as well as supplier/enterprise and socio-economic development.