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<br><br><br> YPF Perspective: Deputy Chairperson<br><br><br> Keamogetswe Mmekwa<br><br><br><br><br><br> This speech was delivered during the Gauteng North and South Presidential Visit<br><br> I would like you to cast your minds back to this years’ theme: ‘Meeting socio economic challenges through infrastructure<br> investment.’<br><br> What if I challenged that statement and asked what good an investment in infrastructure is if we don’t have the capacity to<br> undertake the work? In the past month two people that I know left the industry to pursue other interests. Let me rephrase that, two<br> young engineers (that I know personally) left the engineering industry. One, a civil engineer by trade to become a restauranteur,<br> the other a mechanical engineer went back to school to study medicine.<br><br> This is nothing new to the industry, in fact it is part of the reason why the Young Professionals forum was established as far back<br> as 2004 and as long as we keep experiencing this brain drain it means that we, as organisations advocating for the sustainability<br> of our profession, are failing. It got me thinking about why we are failing, about the future of our industry and about our country<br> and I realised, amongst other issues that my generation has too many options.<br><br> I consider myself privileged to be born in the 80’s. What this means is that I am old enough to converse about the lives of Steve<br> Biko, Martin Luther King Jnr. Chris Hani or even Thomas Sankara while being able to talk about Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber.<br> It means I can finally appreciate the movie Sarafina and the contribution to the arts by John Kani, I understand the impact of<br> the literature of Nadine Gordimer (of course I didn’t in yester years) and the poetry of Maya Angelou yet I am still able to ‘LOL’,<br> LMAO, Hashtag and TBT. It means that I can get down to Brenda Fassie, Billy Ocean, Justin Timberlake or Pharrell and it means<br> that I can watch and relate to the Wizards of Waverley Place and the BBC all in the same hour.<br> But being born in the 80’s goes beyond our addiction to apple products. My daily literature for instance, besides engineering<br> codes, is a combination of twitter, eNCA, Forbes, Facebook, the New Yorker and books such as ‘Nothing left to steal’ by Mzilikazi<br> wa Afrika or ‘David and Goliath’ by Malcom Gladwell (two books I’ve found myself indulging in at the same time) and that in itself<br> is testament to the plethora of options we have at our disposal. As diverse in our options as we are, ‘Generation Y’ as we are<br> sometimes categorised, are very fickle in nature.<br> The thing is we understand that we are the upcoming leaders, that we are next in line, that we are at the change point where<br> we need to take over the baton, but really who wants to inherit our current political atmosphere, an overstressed and over taxed<br> working class, the current crime rate, famine, a housing crisis, unmaintained infrastructure, a people that use the education of<br> their kids as a protest tool? Who wants to inherit our energy and water problems? It’s a huge burden that YOU our current leaders<br> are leaving to us.<br><br> As arduous as effort as it is though, shimmers of leadership are emerging, but we’re still very much a country set in its patriarchal<br> and geriatric ways. I mean our president is 73, and this seems to be the going age for African leaders. Basically the transfer of<br> the baton is not happening and neither is it happening in our industry and that is why we keep seeing so many young people<br> leaving engineering. You see, Generation Y don’t fight, we talk and we are opinionated, but mostly we’re couch advocates. We<br> push as far as we feel comfortable then we are on to the next thing. This ranges from #BringBackOurGirls, #SaveTheRhino to<br> even changing careers. So again I ask: ‘What happens if we DO get the money to fund infrastructure, but we’ve lost our young<br> engineers while you’ll be enjoying retirement?’ Will you be enjoying retirement if your basic socio-economic needs are not taken<br> care of? Will you be proud to hand over an industry to an uncertain youth who go to work simply to get paid?<br><br> The baby boomers aren’t perturbed, as they are approaching retirement, generation X are too cynical and have a ton of baggage,<br> generation Z, characterised by an addiction to their phones and a disdain for spelling and anything that forces them to get out<br> of their cyber bubble, kind of leave it to generation Y, the largest cohort since the baby boomers, but as with any generation we<br> need to be heard and trusted. Take a leaf out of the chapter titled ‘Set people free’ from the Greatness guide 2 by Robin Sharma.<br> He states: “The best leaders turn their teammates loose.<br> They clearly communicate the vision, coach and develop their people and once done, set them free.” He goes on to say “People<br> want to be a part of an organisation that lets them bring their gifts to work and be fully alive. People want to be engaged and feel<br> proud of their contribution (especially generation Y). He concludes by saying: “At the deepest level, each of us aches to know<br> the work we do and the lives we lead make a difference.<br> So I guess what I am trying to get across is that we need to find alternative ways of leadership and searching for leaders in the<br> engineering realm, who are passionate about their work and industry and would like to see it grow. This is what we try to do as<br> the Young Professionals Forum. We would like to build an industry that espouses reputability, dignity and quality, but we need<br> you to go back to your companies and call on more YP’s to join us.<br><br><br><br><br> 11<br>
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