Multilingual engineering projects are normal now. Running one in three languages at the same time is not.
Olivia talks to Dr Omar Chávez Alegría — civil engineer, professor and researcher at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro in Mexico — about the Eco-Innovation Network, a research collaboration between universities in Mexico, the United States and Canada.
The network sits under the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), created alongside NAFTA in 1994 to deal with the environmental fallout of cross-border trade. Every CEC report is published in English, French and Spanish. Every public meeting runs with simultaneous interpretation in all three.
Then there is the site. On a construction site in Yucatán, the working language is Maya. In central Mexico it might be Ñañu. The Spanish word for pavement will not help you there.
In this episode:
- What the Eco-Innovation Network does, and why it started in 2019
- How the CEC and the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC) reach decisions across three countries
- Simultaneous interpretation vs. translation, and why the CEC pays for both
- What happens when the correct technical term is not the one your crew uses
- Inside the Youth Innovation Challenge: microplastics, mushroom-fibre cups, UV robots in strawberry fields
- Why civil engineering covers far more ground than roads and bridges
Resources:
The Eco-Innovation Network: http://ecoinnovationnetwork.org/
The CEC: http://www.cec.org/
The JPAC: http://www.cec.org/about/joint-public-advisory-committee/
The TMEC (formerly TLCAN): https://www.gob.mx/t-mec
Connect with Dr. Chavéz
Dr. Omar Chavéz Alegría is the department head of the Facultad de Ingeniería at the Autonomous University of Queretaro, where he fills the roles of a professor and researcher.
Linkedin | University Website
Connect with Olivia Augustin
Olivia Augustin is a civil engineer and certified English as a second language teacher. With her one-on-one lessons and group courses, she teaches non-native English-speaking engineers the kind of English that gets the job done.
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