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The Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (QEPrize)launches a new podcast, Create the Future, which explores the world of skill, creativity, and innovation that comprises engineering, and highlights how engineers impact our lives each and every day.
Engineering is everywhere. From nanotechnology and the Internet of Things to autonomous vehicles, healthcare, and even your morning cup of coffee – engineering shapes the world around us.
Yet, as Lord Browne of Madingley, Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation highlights, engineers are often taken for granted: “Advances in healthcare, for example, have been based on engineering breakthroughs. Look at sewers, look at clean water, look at what happens in an intensive care unit, and look at what happens in an operating theatre. We thank the medical practitioners but often overlook the equally hard work of engineers.”
Hosted by Sue Nelson, award-winning radio producer, science journalist, and former BBC TV science and environment correspondent, each month’s episode will explore a different area of engineering and bring together the knowledge, experiences, and ideas of both leading industry experts and the young engineers who will shape the future.
In the inaugural episode, available today, we speak with Lord Browne about the profound impact that engineering has, and continues to have, on the world around us.
In the second episode – Moon landing and Mars rovers: our forays into space – to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, we talk with Apollo engineer Dr David Baker and then traverse the surface of Mars with Airbus ExoMars rover engineer Abbie Hutty. The episode is available tomorrow, 17th July.
The episodes will be available first on SoundCloud, Anchor, and Spotify, and will be released on the following platforms over the coming week: Apple Podcasts, Breaker, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, and Stitcher.
The guests
Lord Browne of Madingley is Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation. He is also Executive Chairman of L1 Energy, an investment firm specialising in the oil and gas sector, and from 1998 to 2007 he was Group Chief Executive of BP plc. He has degrees from Cambridge University in the UK and Stanford University in the US. He is Chairman of the Francis Crick Institute and the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Sue Nelson began her career as a radio sound engineer for the BBC before deciding to retrain and work on the other side of the studio glass. Now a multi-award winning science journalist and broadcaster, Sue produces and presents podcasts, radio documentaries and short films. She’s also a writer and author of the critically acclaimed book Wally Funk’s Race for Space.
Abbie Hutty is a British mechanical engineer. She has worked as the lead structures engineer on the European Space Agency ExoMars rover vehicle and in 2016, she was elected as the youngest ever Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Dr David Baker worked closely on the Apollo programme to allow astronauts to remain on the moon for extended periods of time. Subsequently, he worked on developing NASA’s Space Shuttle, and helped to integrate aerospace technologies in several Asian countries.
