Month: March 2018

Hello everyone

This month I’d like to focus on some of the great work that our Young Professionals Committee does.  A “Young Professional” (or “YP”) in SPE’s world means an industry professional under the age of 35 – although their activities are open to all members

Their flagship programme is the monthly Simplified Series which presents a wide range of technical and technology subjects in an easy to understand way.  This year they started with a presentation from RigQuip where attendees got a chance to go on a VR tour of a rig. Other speakers have included Dr Patrick O’Brien from ITF and Mike Backus from Nexen; their presentations are on available on the knowledge section of our website. Already confirmed for the rest of the year are speakers from Expro, Agiletek and 1CSI. If you’d be interested in demystifying a technology as part of this series please contact yp.chair@spe-uk.org

Their other programme is Unplugged 360 – delivering presentations covering soft skills and personal development such as the recent workshop with Mark Cowieson from Archer and David Robertson from Wild Thinking which was very successful and popular. Watch out for further similar workshops in 2018.

Last year the YP’s organised the Emerging Engineers Forum at Offshore Europe with theme of Innovation and encouraging young professionals in industry to adopt an innovative mind-set to develop new technologies. Speakers from Frontrow Technology Group, EC_OG and Cyberhawk Innovations shared their knowledge and experience; click here to hear from one of the attendees.

The YP’s also work closely with others to promote our industry to young people, supporting the Schools and Careers Guidance (SCG) committee to inspire next generation by visiting schools careers fairs representing the industry.

Our thanks go to Expro Group for their continued support of our YP programme.  The committee is seeking additional sponsorship to enable them to deliver more events of value to our Young Professionals – if you can help please contact yp.chair@spe-uk.org

Details of all the upcoming YP events can be found on the section’s website and we look forward to seeing you at the events.

February 2018 Newsletter

Dear SPE Aberdeen members, colleagues and friends,

Plans are well under way for the 32nd Offshore Achievement Awards; the finalists were revealed last month and the winners will be announced at the black tie event on 22nd March – more details below. This event continues to be the biggest and longest established industry awards for the UK offshore energy sector, and its success ensures we are able to continue our work to inspire the next generation to think about the oil and gas industry as an attractive career choice.

The activities and initiatives that we support are wide ranging and I would like to highlight just some of these.

Our annual student bursary awards have been supporting students studying oil and gas subjects for over 20 years, and we are delighted to, again, be in a position to award bursaries up to a total of £20,000. Winners of this year’s awards will be announced later this month. We also support five student chapters across Scotland to ensure they can attend our events in Aberdeen.

This is a busy time of year for pupils choosing subjects for further study and making decisions about their futures.  Our volunteers are on hand to help them – attending careers events in schools from Peterhead to Portlethen. Our SCG committee continues to work closely with Aberdeen Science Centre to roll out Energy4me, SPE’s global energy education programme for schools, across Scotland.

Last year we were delighted to work with the Energy Institute (EI) and the Society of Underwater Technology (SUT) to create the hugely successful “NASA in Aberdeen” project – bringing a NASA astronaut and space scientist to Aberdeen and inspiring over 3000 school children by showing them how cool technology can be. This project is now an annual fixture in our calendar. In 2018 our theme is robotics – in space and in the oil and gas industry – and we are pleased to be welcoming another NASA astronaut and a robotics engineer to Aberdeen in late March. Details of the events will be posted on our website.

Giving back to our community has always been a priority for the section, and in addition to the projects described above we have also supported a number of “one off” projects over the years. These include funding exhibits at Aberdeen’s Maritime Museum to mark our 30th anniversary and supporting “Inside Industry”, a career guidance website, the only tool of its kind focused on providing first class oil and gas industry career information and advice. This has now been rolled out across more than 300 schools in Scotland.

We were also pivotal in developing a virtual tour of the Captain platform – a resource that is used widely in schools and is part of the materials used in TechFest’s very successful Maths in the Pipeline, an event which we continue to support. We have also been keen supporters of the Northsound 1 Energy Schools Challenge. Running since 1997, this successful initiative encourages school pupils to look at the oil and gas industry as an attractive career option.

If you’d be interested in contributing to these great initiatives – or have other ideas that we might back, then please get in touch at aberdeen.chair@spe-uk.org .