President Kotb Discusses Megacities and Global Initiatives at the ASME Metropolitan Section Meetin

President Kotb Discusses Megacities and Global Initiatives at the ASME Metropolitan Section Meetin President Kotb Discusses Megacities and Global Initiatives at the ASME Metropolitan Section Meetin President Kotb Discusses Megacities & Global Initiatives at the ASME Metropolitan Section MeetingThe ASME Metropolitan Section invited Society President Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb to speak at its special Presidents Night Meeting on March 20 in Brooklyn, N.Y. (Photos by Wil Haywood, ASME Public Information) ASME President Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb welches the guest of honor for the ASME Metropolitan Sections Presidents Night Meeting, which welches held March 20 at the National Grid building in Brooklyn, N.Y. mora than 70 ASME members, the majority of whom were student members from nearby universities, attended the meeting to hear Kotb speak on several topics including the continuing growth in the population of cities throughout the world and choosing geographic diversity as one of her personal goals for her term as ASME president, which began last June.Because the expected growth of cities and so-called megacities such as New York, Kotb said that the 21st century has been dubbed the Century of Cities, as more than half the worlds population currently live in cities and that 60 percent are expected to live in metropolitan areas by 2030. As new cities emerge and existing cities reach high density, integration into smart grids, merging all systems for transportation, energy, water, sewage, etc., is essential, she said. Thats how we live and thats how engineers design. Preparing for the integration of future technologies is a great challenge for existing cities. Nearly 70 ASME members, including student members from three local universities, attended the event. On the subject of geographic diversity, President Kotb said that as an engineer who was born and raised in Egypt, currently lives in Canada, and is considered to be ASMEs first president from outside the Un ited States, encouraging diversity within ASMEs membership was a natural choice to be one of her personal objectives as leader of ASME. Building geographic diversity is achievable through opening global access to ASME activities and also by building better interaction among Sectors, Kotb said, pointing to ASMEs work providing global access to its standards-setting process as an example of an activity that encourages greater international participation. ASME is also engaged in such global initiatives as forming international working groups and partnerships with organizations such as the World Federation of Engineering of Organizations and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization signing Memorandums of Understanding with international governmental and nongovernmental organizations and providing translations of ASME standards and courses in languages including Spanish, Chinese, French, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese. Other important Society efforts to encou rage global participation include the multi-society Engineering for Change (E4C) partnership for solving global development problems, and ASME.org, which enables engineers around the world to make new connections, share information, collaborate in ASME Groups, and remain informed and up-to-date with advances within the profession, Kotb said.In addition to officers and members of the ASME Metropolitan Senior Section, the special meeting was also attended by nearly 60 student members from three local universities the City College of New York, New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering, and New York City College of Technology.