Abstract
The engineers’ ethos can be explained by the composition of the population (mainly male, highly educated, at ease with science and coming from upper middle class families). But this ethos is also influenced by the graduates’ secondary socialization in the engineering education and whilst at work. In this chapter, the author sets out to investigate the influence of the involvement of engineering students in a development-oriented association on their career path. The research is based on a large number of ex-members of the association “Engineers without Borders” in France. In this chapter, the author analyses by means of online CVs and interviews with ISF present-time staff current the professional path of a few main figures of the 30-year-old association.
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- 1.
Other student associations have carried this name since 1982, and many of them have gathered in an international network. Although all concerned with international solidarity, they do not share exactly the same goal nor work in the same way (Lamb 2010). For a better understanding of the humanitarian context of engineering (Mitcham and Munoz 2009).
- 2.
ISF appears to us as the sole French engineers-only association to defend not only in words, as most codes of ethics do, but also through very concrete actions the ideal of a socially responsible engineering.
- 3.
- 4.
Like Eugene Schlossberger for whom engineering is not “just a job”, but “a calling”, a moral commitment and who defines “the engineering way” as being in itself “precise, rational and careful” (Schlossberger 1993, pp. 41–42)
- 5.
The Prize was attributed that year to Joseph Rotblat and Bertrand Russell who founded the “Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs” in 1957 in order to bring together influential policy officials and scientists to seek towards eliminating nuclear weapon and reducing the threat of war.
- 6.
On the webpage of “Sustainable”, each member’s career is described. The article on Thierry des Lauriers, still readable in 2011, states that he founded ISF in 1982. We also found an open letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy that he signed in 2009 as the managing director of Sustainable, “president founder of Ingénieurs sans frontières” and member of “les semeurs de communions” (a Catholic movement). The letter was about Christian values and the twenty-first-century’s economic challenges.
- 7.
On LinkedIn, François Friggit presents himself as “managing director, front office ‘quantitative analyst’” specialized in “complex financial products based on sophisticated mathematical models”. Graduated from Polytechnique, ENGREF and HEC school of management, he worked for different banks in Paris, New York, London and Madrid and previously for 5 years in West Africa as an engineer.
- 8.
Ashoka is an international nonprofit organization supporting the field of social entrepreneurship.
- 9.
Pechiney offered 500,000 francs in 1993 to ISF for two development projects in Mali and Togo. (Alternative économique, n° 109, 1993).
- 10.
Available on the website of the ISF project “Former l’ingénieur citoyen (educate a socially responsible engineer)” (http://formic.isf-france.org)
- 11.
Altermondes, n°11, Septembre 2007, Dossier 11 “Trop jeunes pour changer le monde?” – Too young to change the world? (http://altermondes.org/spip.php?article232)
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Didier, C. (2012). Ex-students Engaged in “Engineers Without Borders”: What Have They Become?. In: Christensen, S., Mitcham, C., Li, B., An, Y. (eds) Engineering, Development and Philosophy. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5282-5_16
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