Inception of the Young Professionals' Forum (YPF) - Sri Lanka

The Young Professionals' Forum (YPF) of the Association of Consulting Engineers of Sri-Lanka (ACESL) consists of Young Professionals who are qualifying in the field of engineering disciplines, currently practicing as consultants in the industry and are interested in ensuring the sustainability and promotion of the profession. Membership of the National YPF is voluntary and restricted to qualified engineering professionals under the age of 40 Years who are employed by ACESL Member firms. Membership beyond the decision making structures is open to all Young Professionals in the Built Environment, under the age of 40 years of age. The YPF was formed in order to uplift the industry where new ideas could be generated to assist and promote the industry and also to identify possible problems which the industry may be facing. The Forum will also involve capacity building of Young Professionals and will make a platform to create opportunities for knowledge sharing among the professionals and the member firms. The YPF was recently established under the purview of ACESL and it is needed to be expanded towards the achieving of above goals with higher grace of national interest by join-handing with parallel engineering bodies operating within and outside of the country. The need for the YPF was identified at the FIDIC& TCDPAP conference in 2013 held in Bangkok, Thailand and FIDIC world conference in Seoul, South Korea, where ACESL drew attention about the concept.

Objectives of the YPF

• To foster and promote the profession of consulting engineering
• To promote and safeguard the young professional interests, rights, powers and privileges of consulting engineers
• Promotion and creating an awareness of the Consulting Engineering Industry and ACESL
• Retention of young professionals within the industry
• Capacity Building, knowledge sharing and networking among the members of the YPF
• Provide a platform for engineers to support each other with registration, training, mentoring and Continuous Professional Development (CPD)
• Visit universities to market the profession of consulting engineering to engineering undergraduates

FIDIC Terms of Reference are:

- Leadership and voice for the Young Professionals (YP)
      - Encourage long-term YP participation in FIDIC activities
      - Encourage FIDIC member companies to sponsor the participation of YPs in FIDIC and FIDIC YP activities
      - Encourage and support growth of YP MA associations
      - Promote benefits of FIDIC participation to YPs and member companies.
      - Liaise with the FIDIC EC and promote YP initiatives.
- Networking
      - Coordinate and execute YP events at FIDIC conferences.
      - Act as a bridge to share information between YP MAs.
      - Create Opportunities for exchange programs for the YP community.
      - Contact YP Member Association leaders and promote their activities regularly.
      - Work with YP Member Association groups to identify trends and events of interest, and share these items with the YP    community.
- Online resource management
      - Maintain an updated Young Professionals Forum webpage of people, events and activities.
      - Publish regular e-newsletters of YP activities worldwide.
      - Manage and direct discussions in an online forum.
      - Manage a register of interested YPs and Young Professionals Management Training Programme alumni

The Executive Committee – YPF for Year 2013/14