APETT Council Vision: To Lead the Advancement of the Engineering Profession in Trinidad and Tobago

through Effective Collaboration with All Stakeholders

APETT PEN PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS’ NEWSLETTER

In This

Issue

• What the

APETT award

means to me

and advice to

young

engineers

• H&A

Ceremony

Awardees

• APETT

Presidential

Address at the

H&A

Ceremony

• Op-Ed: The

Rise of the

Machines in

T&T

Association of Professional Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago October 2015

What the APETT award means to me and

advice to young engineers

Being recognized by APETT as an Outstanding Young Engi-

neer is an extraordinary moment and I am truly grateful. At-

tending the ceremony and learning about the achievements of

other awardees made me feel both proud and privileged to be

included in this group. I consider this an achievement not just

for myself but for everyone who has contributed to my per-

sonal and technical development as a young Professional.

Being an engineer means that you have the potential to be

creative, innovative, explore new possibilities and ideas. It is

important for engineers to recognize that the work they do can make a difference and influence the

future of our country.

Throughout my career thus far I have had many learnings. The one that stood out most to me was

that of continuous improvement. This concept is having a passion to do things better today than

we did yesterday. I would like to advise the young engineers to continuously challenge themselves

and adopt the culture of continuous improvement.

Danny Ramoutar

Mr. Danny Ramoutar

H&A Ceremony -

Awardees

Career of Excellence in Engineering – Eng. Winston Riley

R.V.S. Aleong Award for Sterling Service to APETT – Eng.

Emile S. Charles

Fenrick R. De Four Award for Outstanding Engineering

Achievement – Eng. Cavallo Sebastien

APETT Outstanding Young Engineer Award - Mr. Danny

Ramoutar

APETT Engineering Research and Innovation Award – Ms.

Nilia Maharaj-Budhoo

APETT Bursary Award Recipient – Ms. Dana Kimberly

Basdeo

APETT FELLOWS

Eng. Jo-Ann Ali-Nandalal ; Eng. Hafeez Baksh ; Eng.

Clarence Blanchfield ; Eng. Robert A. Dumbell ; Eng.

Peter A. Forde ; Eng. Anil Gosine ; Eng. Abraham

Hadeed ; Eng. Selwyn A. James ; Eng. Frank D. Lee

Ying ; Eng. Ramanlal M. Patel ; Eng. Nizam Shah; Eng.

Darlington Eugene Winter

Page 2

Extracts from APETT’s Presidential Address at 55th

H&A Ceremony

It is indeed a pleasure to welcome such a large turnout for this very prestigious occasion. Today, we honour our

Engineers for their outstanding work, dedication and commitment to their profession and their contribution to the

development of Trinidad and Tobago. You would note the achievements of these engineers in their various

fields of engineering and undoubtedly agree that they are truly deserving of their awards.

As is customary in these events, as President on behalf of the APETT Council I will brief you on our achieve-

ments to date and goals set for our 2015/2016 term. We started off on a successful note with our Annual Tech-

nical Conference which was held at the NESC auditorium in Point Lisas on June 25th and 26th. The theme for

this year’s Conference was “Engineering for Sustainable Development in the Caribbean”. We are hopeful that

the knowledge gained from this conference could be shared with those in authority from the energy sector, as

we continue to pursue a source of alternative energy for our country’s future. We must be conscious that our oil

and gas reserves are reducing.

We continue to seek collaboration with other engineering societies to build a strong and vibrant engineering sec-

tor in our country. We have recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the International Society of Auto-

mation and are on the verge of signing similar agreements with the Institution of Chemical Engineers and the

National Energy Skills Centre. We have noted a few projects undertaken by the UTT are in sync with our recent

Conference, and APETT intends to foster a relationship with the UTT to further develop these projects, and en-

ter into an Agreement where we can share our technical knowledge and skills.

Since I was elected on the APETT Council, I was always concerned about the presence and representation of

Engineers from Tobago. I was given Council’s approval in 2014 to initiate discussions, which was done with

Eng. Mc Wellington and later with Eng. Burris, who gave me tremendous support towards the formation of a To-

bago Division. In May 2014, under the stewardship of our Past President, the APETT’s Professional Engineers

Newsletter was relaunched. We are requesting that members use this opportunity to share articles of interest

with all our members through this monthly publication. APETT also produces a Journal annually JAPETT, and

Eng. Professor Pun is the Editor.

The APETT Conditions of Engagement presently in use by Consulting Engineers was locally developed in 1984.

After several attempts by Past Councils, Eng. Fazir Khan along with his Committee, Eng. Lezama, Eng.

Ramsubhag, Eng.Jackman and Eng. Stewart have drafted a revised Conditions of Engagement 2015.

Prior to being released, a final seminar will be arranged among engineers to discuss the draft document, before

being published for public use.

Today is a day of Celebration for the life and achievement of our colleagues who have made a significant contri-

bution and impact in their workplace and our country. However, I need to bring the unavoidable topic of funding,

which has bemused me, when I consider all the efforts that our awardees and engineers throughout the country,

have sacrificed and continue to do, for the success and existence of companies and institutions. Your presence

(continued on the next page)

Page 3

here today at this Ceremony is not by chance. The vehicle that you drove, the roads that you drove on, the

building that you are in, the cooling comfort, the equipment that prepared your meal and the list can go on and

on, the common factor in all of these is Engineering.

Our Organisation, APETT, is not wealthy and we often beseech companies to assist us to defray cost in ven-

tures such as this one today. But sadly, despite our appeal to the various Ministries, Companies, Institutions and

others to show support for our discussions on new Technologies at our Conferences etc., or to honour Engi-

neers for their resilience and dedication to their profession, we are often told to accept their best wishes for our

ventures. If wishes could have turned into money, APETT would be a bank today.

APETT will continue to move on, as we have done in the past fifty five years of our existence. Special thanks to

our Committee members for their hard work and sacrifice of time in bringing this Ceremony to a reality.

In closing, on behalf of the 2015/2016 APETT Council, I extend our best wishes to all our awardees. Ladies and

Gentlemen, we thank you for your support.

Do enjoy the rest of the evening.

Contact Us

Email or call for more information or to participate. APETT, The Professional Centre, 11-13 Fitz Blackman Drive, Port-of-Spain

Email: office@apett.org; Phone: (868) 627-6697; Web: www.apett.org; Like us on Facebook. PEN Editor: Eng. Dr. Chris Maharaj (R.Eng., MAPETT, C.Eng.)

Section of audience at the APETT 55th H&A Ceremony

Page 4

Op-Ed: The Rise of the Machines in T&T

For every 100 people living in Trinidad and Tobago there are over 145 mobile phone SIM card users. This is what the Tele-

communications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (TATT) discovered when they did the “The Digital Divide Survey Trinidad

and Tobago, 2013” exercise. This impressive figure is called mobile phone penetration rate, and it places T&T in a group of

40 countries which has comparable figures of 140. World Bank data for 2013 places Macao and Hong Kong at the top with

figures of 304 and 237 respectively. Countries like the USA could only muster 96.

ICT Development Index (IDI) benchmarks a country’s technology development: T&T ranks at 67th place based the 2013

data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Denmark, South Korea and Sweden topped this ranking.

The penetration statistics demonstrated the extent to which people in T&T have access to ICT via the GSM mobile networks.

Typically, we assume that most of the activities on the networks are mainly humans using Voice, SMS and Data to interact

with each other: Human to Human (H2H) communication. The reality is that there is an increasing number of GSM devices

(machines) that utilize microprocessors and SIM cards to carry important monitoring, tracking, measuring and alert functions

that consumers depend on.

In the movies, spies and criminals conceal their identity by using a series of pre-paid SIM cards with cheap “throw away”

“burner” phones. This article focuses on another application of SIM cards: The use by Machines: programmable computer-

based equipment that use SIM cards for Voice, SMS and data services just like humans and with much more potential!

The same full size SIM card that works in an ordinary mobile phone will also enable a host of machines to communicate with

humans and other machines. All legacy GSM communication modes are used: Voice, 2G (GPRS) and SMS. Once the ma-

chines are active on a mobile network it is very difficult to differentiate these from mobile phones being used by people,

A lot of these GSM machines are consumer-based devices such as GPS trackers, home security and medical devices. For

example, if a private individual wants to deploy a smart GPS tracker to monitor, track and secure his vehicle all he has to do

is as follows:

• Buy a smart GPS/GSM tracker

• Purchase a full size pre-paid SIM (pre-paid or post-paid)

• Get a car alarm electrician to install the machine in the vehicle

Depending on the model of smart tracker, the consumer can get his machine to do the

following:

• Report every trip

• Audio monitoring

• Send a wide variety of SMS reports

• Connect to a server to send e-mail reports

How many intelligent machines are on our mobile Telecoms in T&T? Actually no one knows. TATT should work with the

Mobile operators to capture the actual number of machines using the mobile networks. This information is important in in-

forming government and in shaping future regulatory, economic and ICT policies.

Article Author: Eng. Jason B. Gordon

Eng. Jason Gordon