Engineering The Future

Episode 37: The Voice of Engineers - OSPE 2023 Year in Review

December 11, 2023 • Ontario Society of Professional Engineers • Season 2 • Episode 37

Share episode

In this special year-end episode of Engineering the Future, host Jerome James speaks with the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers' CEO Sandro Perrzuzza. Together, they review the incredible work OSPE has done on behalf of engineers in 2023 and the exciting plans they have for 2024.

From advocacy task forces and working groups that are reshaping the engineering landscape, to groundbreaking educational programs, OSPE continues to be a force for change. Join us for this deep dive into the work of OSPE, the Voice of Engineers in Ontario. 

 

ENGINEERING THE FUTURE
 EPISODE 37 OSPE YEAR IN REVIEW WITH SANDRO PERRUZZA

JEROME JAMES: This episode of Engineering the Future is brought to you by The Personal, OSPE's home and auto insurance partner. These past few months have shown us just how important it is to have someone in your corner. When it comes to home and auto insurance, The Personal can be that someone. If you would like to learn more about this exclusive program, visit thepersonal.com slash OSPE.


 FEMALE NARRATOR: This podcast is brought to you by OSPE, the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, the advocacy body for professional engineers in the engineering community in Ontario.

JEROME JAMES: Welcome to a special year-end edition of Engineering the Future. I am your host, Jerome James. Today, we're taking a closer look at the remarkable efforts of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers throughout 2023. From advocacy initiatives that are reshaping the engineering landscape to groundbreaking educational programming, OSPE has been a force for change. Joining me to help unpack the highlights of 2023 and to give us a sneak peek into the exciting plans Auspey has in store for 2024 is Auspey's CEO, Sandro Parruzza. Sandro, welcome to Engineering the Future. Thank you, Jerome. Thanks for having me back. Absolutely. So jumping right into it, Sandro, for those members of our audience who aren't familiar, and I'm sure it's a very small number, can you break it down? What is OSPE all about?

SANDRO PERRUZZA: Sure. So the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, or OSPE, is the advocacy and member services body for the engineering community in Ontario. So that represents professional engineers, engineering graduates, engineering students, internationally trained. So anyone who's working in engineering, has graduated from engineering, we are, we represent them. We are the voice of engineers in Ontario.

JEROME JAMES: Okay, that's interesting. So what does it mean when you say the voice of engineers?

SANDRO PERRUZZA: Sure. Well, so when government or the media or the public, you know, there's an issue and they say, hmm, I wonder what engineers think about this. You know, they can go to a local engineer on the corner and say, you know, Jerome, we're thinking of putting an LRT in your neighborhood. What do you think about that? And you can give your opinion and then they go to the next person who's an engineer and in your neighborhood and let's say his name is Frank or Susan or whatever, and they'll give their opinion. But what we do actually is we put together a task force or a working group who'll study the issue. Look at all the engineering. It's our task forces and working groups are staffed with industry experts who really know their stuff. So they'll examine it from all angles. They'll see what the latest technology says around it. And then we put together a report and we will, you know, provide a response officially based on what Ontario's engineers think about this issue. Uh, so we get a consensus, uh, we, uh, provide input for our members on certain occasions. Uh, we'll do, um, webinars, uh, get a member input. Uh, we'll do consultations. Uh, but in the end we represent Ontario's engineers. We are quote unquote, the voice. Uh, of course there's professional engineers, Ontario. They are the regulators. They regulate engineers. Uh, but we, we officially represent engineers and their, uh, opinion and their insights on certain topics.

JEROME JAMES: Wonderful. So tell me what has been happening in 2023.

SANDRO PERRUZZA: You know, every year I, you know, I, I talked to the board and board sets out objectives for me and I tell them, you know, wow, this past year has been amazing. I don't think we can do anything better next year. Of course, Jerome, as a board member, You don't take that. You always say, Sandro, I think we could do a little more. And we tried to do that in 2023. And I'm happy to say that we actually exceeded many of our expectations. The engineering landscape in Ontario, actually the engineering landscape in Canada, has been changing significantly over the past few years. And I think 2023 is one of those years where there's been some groundbreaking changes. Um, you know, uh, first things, uh, the, the, there's been some change, which in, within the leadership of different engineering organizations, In Ontario, you have a new CEO at Professional Engineers of Ontario, you have a new executive director at the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies of Ontario. But I think the biggest change in the landscape is that engineers in Geoscience BC, the regulator, in British Columbia announced that they are setting up an advocacy and member services body like, like OSPE. Uh, so they announced that in the summer, uh, they reached out to OSPE asked us to set a representative to be on that advisory committee to set up that entity. Uh, and I think it's, uh, it's really changing, uh, the landscape in Canada. I know in Newfoundland. The regulator out there has said that we are focusing solely on regulating the profession. So they cut their chapters or branches that did advocacy and said, well, they're no longer affiliated with us. Same thing happened in Saskatchewan. So you see this divide between regulation and advocacy that happened in Ontario in the year 2000 is now happening right across the country. Uh, the other thing too is, uh, government has really reached out to us on and ask for our input on a number of different issues and consultations. Um, the predominant one has been around energy transition and how do we go to net zero by 2050? Uh, I think this is a commitment that not only Canada has made, but around the world. So how do we do that in a way that, um. you know, provides a resilient grid, provides sustainable energy and is done in a way that minimizes costs and actually looks at how do we save costs? How does this return some positive cost savings to the average consumer if this is done properly? planned out and in a strategic way. Data governance is another big issue. Governments are trying to figure out how do we, you know, all this data is being collected around us and how do we manage that? So our research innovation task force is really good at data governance. Artificial intelligence and how does that get reined in? The list goes on and on. I think as technology becomes more pervasive, Governments are going to those that are stewards of technology, i.e. engineers, and asking for our input on this. And so it's been a tremendous year. Our advocacy outputs are through the roof. And then, of course, we had our conference this year and some breaking attendance at our conference.

JEROME JAMES: Let's dive into that conference actually. So OSPE held their sixth annual engineering conference in Toronto in October. Can you share some of the highlights from that event with us?

SANDRO PERRUZZA: Yeah, sure. I think that it was great to first share with that we've done it in Toronto. And I got to tell you, I was a little nervous because the cost of hosting an event in Toronto is astronomical, especially doing it at a place like the Metro Toronto Convention Center. Uh, so, uh, we set some ambitious targets with number of attendees. Uh, I can tell you that, uh, we had, uh, over 650, but I think the actual number is 674, uh, full conference attendees. Excellent. Yeah. We had another 5,200, that's right. 5,200, uh, people come through our trade show, uh, and attended the sessions that we hosted at the trade show. We had over a hundred trade show partners who set up boots. Half of them were organizations looking for engineers, the other half were organizations selling technology to engineers. You know, some of the highlights there, we had the Toronto Transit Commission. I think they had 20 staff there all recruiting in different departments. We had your traditional engineering employers there, you know, Ontario Power Generation, you had Hydro One, you had, I was going to say SNC-Lavalin. They actually showed up with their new organization name. They changed their name about two weeks before our conference. So, Atkins Realis was there. WSP was there, Crozier Engineering was there. So a lot of your traditional engineering organizations were there. And then we had a number of non-traditional engineering employers were there. So CIBC was there, they were recruiting. We had Molson Coors was there, they were there recruiting. Canadian Tire was there recruiting, Maple Leaf Foods was there as well. So it just demonstrated the diversity of the profession and all the different industries that it touches. And it was a very long day, but a very successful day. And I think our best conference ever. We had, I think about 22 hours of professional development that was delivered that day as well on all these different topics, everything from nuclear energy, the role of nuclear energy in fighting climate change, how AI is helping to establish some sustainability within the energy sector. I think the key, from my perspective, one of the keynote addresses at noon was having Alex Wong, who is a founder of one of the top AI companies in Canada. talking about how AI is going to transform society in a positive way. Talk about integration of AI in technology, in his perspective, his organization, what they do is they use it in radiographic imaging for MRIs to be able to identify cancer tumors at a higher proficiency than the naked eye can do. Um, that was, that was hosted by WattSpeed and it was just fascinating. Of course, the next day we had our professional engineering awards and no surprise, Dr. Alex Huang won, uh, won one of the professional engineering awards for his research and innovation. So just an outstanding day.

JEROME JAMES: Amazing. I was on the trade floor and the trade show floor, it was packed. It was wall to wall, people crowding halls and engaging. It was a sight to behold to be able to fill up that room with as many people and companies that attended. also of which OSPE’s Engineering Academy had a booth on that trade show floor. Can you explain to the listeners what exactly OSPE’s Engineering Academy is all about?

SANDRO PERRUZZA: Sure. One of our key pillars of our strategic plan is about engineers grow. And really it's about how do they grow professionally? And a key component of that is growing their technical knowledge and growing their personal knowledge and personal proficiency. So Uh, 2023 is also one of the big changes that happened in 2023 in the engineering landscape is that continuing professional development for professional engineers became mandatory this year. Now PO did later on in the year say that they're going to give, this was the learning year, so they're not going to enforce it. They are going to monitor you as a professional engineer will get a letter early in January, telling you whether you met your PD requirements or not and how they're going to enforce it in 2024, including increased scrutiny around reporting and monitoring. So, and the other thing that we've identified is So last year, at the end of 2022, we released our benchmark report talking about transition in the profession. And I can tell you that that report actually got us awarded to Canadian Society of Association Executives for one of the best benchmark reports around member engagement. But what that report showed that within the next five to 10 years, about 30% of the profession will be retiring. So you have a transition happening where some of your more experienced, knowledgeable engineers are leaving and that you need a new generation to come in. 30% is quite significant. So you need a new generation of engineers coming in. And how do we transfer that knowledge from those experienced, retired engineers into the new crop of engineers? So the Academy was set up, it's been a work in progress over the last three years. I can tell you that OSPE through the support of its board of directors has been investing a lot of money into developing that Academy to be able to launch it fully this year so that we have A number of courses available. We have technical courses. We have management courses. We have courses in equity, diversity, and inclusion. We have courses in leadership. We have courses in communication, all these different courses available for engineers to take so that they can grow professionally through their technical knowledge and personally through I don't want to call them SOP skills, but more of the non-technical skills that allow them to be better communicators, better team members, better managers, and better communicators with not only their staff, but with their clients. And so we have now on there several hundred of hours of training available to our members.

JEROME JAMES: Fascinating. I want to transition into talking a little bit more about the advocacy work that OSPE is doing or has been undertaking in 2023. Can you talk to me more about the task forces and the type of work that they've been up to this year? My understanding that there are five distinct task forces currently?

SANDRO PERRUZZA: Yes. So, you're very knowledgeable. Absolutely. Yeah. We have five task forces. I'll go through them all. And then we also have working groups, but I'll go through the task forces and the work that they've been doing. I'll start with our sustainable cities task force. That task force is looking at, of course, a significant amount of money is being spent into infrastructure. Uh, so what we want to do is how do we use those infrastructure dollars to build smartly, to build in a way that has low impact on communities, uh, that has a certain level of innovation in there, uh, so that we can recycle, um, key resources. For example, how do we recycle or reuse soil? How do we recycle or reuse aggregates in our construction? How do we design low impact communities? So they've been working on that. One of the other key elements of that sustainable cities task force is qualifications based selection, which we think is going to be a great, and what QBS is all about is, you know, let's say you're going to renovate your home or you're going to renovate your basement or put in a new kitchen. And so you go and talk to a number of different contractors, you go talk to a number of different designers, and you pick the design that best suits your needs. You don't go with the cheapest design, you don't go with necessarily the most expensive design. You go with the best design based on your budget and based on your needs. Well, you know what? That's qualifications based selection. The way the government chooses their designer is they say, we need a kitchen. And we're not quite sure if the kitchen is going to meet our needs or not, but we don't really care because we need a kitchen that's going to be able to make certain number of meals a day. And we're going to pick the cheapest design. That's no way to build infrastructure. So qualifications based selection is another key ingredient that, that work is happening with sustainable cities task force. I'll move to energy next. Energy is again, been working very hard on looking at how do we transition to net zero, but also how do we continue to maintain a sustainable grid, a grid that is resilient and also a grid that is affordable. And they've been working very hard on that for a number of years now. And they actually came up with a concept six years ago that was finally adopted by the government of Ontario. And this is this ultra low pricing program that you heard minister Todd Smith share this summer. And really what that is, is as more and more Households buy electric vehicles. What we want to do is try to shift our load from the day to the night so that it's much, much cheaper to use energy at night, to encourage people to use energy at night when they're recharging their vehicles or if they want to do laundry at night or wash their dishes at night. How do we do that? How do we encourage people when we have excess energy at night to do that? One of the ways to do it is make energy really, really inexpensive at night to encourage people to do it. Also for businesses, if they can shift their load to evening as well, it's a benefit for them.

JEROME JAMES: And that's a really great example of a, a win that OSPE was able to cultivate, be the primary author and, and convince policy changing at the provincial level.

SANDRO PERRUZZA: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The minister was actually quite, um, quite open about that at his news conference. Uh, you know, and he's talked about how we came and talked to him when he was actually the critic before the PC government was actually in power, how Osby came and talked to him about it. And he admitted it took him a number of years to finally get the concept. So, uh, you know, it just demonstrates the knowledge that engineers have around this area. So we're, we're very excited about that. Let's see who we're going to move on to next, our research and innovation task force. I can probably do a whole podcast on that. I already alluded to some of the work that they've been doing around data governance, around AI. around cybersecurity. They just released a recent report on quantum computing and its impact on society and potential benefits. And the list goes on and on. They've been cutting out white papers like there's no tomorrow. Beatrice, their chair, has set up a number of different subcommittees, all focused on a different area, and they're putting out a tremendous number of reports and getting a lot of traction. So we're very excited about the work of that group. Uh, the climate crisis task force is another one, uh, Jeff Sheffrin, the chair of that. He also has his own, uh, podcast, which is, um, mother nature doesn't give a crap. Uh, but really what that group is looking at the impact of climate change on our society, on our communities, uh, what we do need to do to adapt, what we need to do to mitigate and what we need to do to get to that net zero, uh, carbon, um, society that we all need to do in order to survive the next 30, 40, 50 years. Uh, so they've, again, are working on looking at a lot of the work they're doing actually impacts the other task forces as well for, because of course, getting to net zero, uh, requires an energy component, requires a building component, requires a transportation component. So they're doing a lot of work, uh, at a very high level, look at all the things that we need to do as a society to get there. Our Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility Task Force, the work that they're doing is really how do we build a more inclusive society and a more inclusive and diverse engineering profession. So again, they're looking at a lot of the role of intersectionality in EDI? How do we change workplaces to accommodate different needs of different segments of our population? Because a study after study after study has shown that the more diverse your workplaces and more diverse your workforces, The better collaboration you have, the better innovation you have. And again, for engineering, engineering is all about the design. It's all about innovation and collaborative design. So this is why it's so important for engineering to have that diversity component to it. One of the things that we're doing on that front with respect to us being our advocacy is we're talking about including EDI policies and programs in procurement. So if you are a government at the municipal, provincial or at federal level, and you're doing any procurement of engineering services, whether it's an infrastructure, whether it's an environmental or any other type of design, but we're asking is as a pilot project. that any engineering company that's going to be submitting a quote or an RFP must have an EDI policy and a program to implement that policy. We've suggested some components that need to be in those programs, but we really think this is a game changer. We have the support. Now you're saying, oh, you know, Sandro, who's on board with this? Who's possibly going to support this? Well, before we, so this has been a three year project. We're about just to about two and a half years into it now. So we've got to have another half year left into this. So the first year and a half, we did all the research. We looked at what works, what doesn't. Setting up quotas doesn't work just because we don't have the numbers. Right now within the consulting engineering space, only 12%, 12% of consulting engineers are women. Only 1%. Self-identify as indigenous. So setting a quota is impossible at this stage, not until we get that numbers up. So how do we get the numbers up? How do we encourage engineering companies to set that culture? Well, one of the ways is if you want procurement dollars, set, put these programs in place and, and set your own internal targets and measure towards those targets. Uh, and, and we've done the research. So we get, uh, we go into all these different, uh, procurement agencies and sharing our research and our best practices with them. And, uh, we've gotten some tremendous feedback, some tremendous support, and we set up an advisory committee and on this advisory committee, we had representatives from the association of consultant engineering companies of Canada, the association of consultant engineering companies of Ontario, the society of women engineers. We had representatives from engineers Canada. We had representatives from, um, uh, by social, which is an organization made up of social procurement professionals, municipalities across Canada. But we also had representatives from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. And I think that is what's so amazing about this because here you had representatives from their business community who admitted that, you know, EDI is important. So they wanted to sit in to learn so that they can then go and advocate for these similar programs at municipalities and communities across Canada for similar processes. Uh, and now I'll quickly transition. We have, uh, one other working group that I think is, has made some significant impact, uh, not only in Ontario and not only nationally, but internationally. And it's our indoor air quality working group, um, chaired by Joey Fox. So that working group, uh, you know, when COVID first hit and, you know, in, in 20, oh my goodness, when in 2020, I guess was, We, you know, we didn't know if COVID was airborne. We didn't know, we all thought it was being spread through droplets. And so there are a lot of processes in place to, you know, protect ourselves by wearing masks and washing our hands and all that. But what we did realize is that when we were coughing, when we're breathing, that those droplets were actually being spread as mists and mists are airborne. And so now these things would get into ventilation systems and you are spreading COVID from one room to the next, or from one big room, from one area to the next, through the ventilation systems. And the other thing we learned, I learned anyways, cause I'm not an HVAC engineer, is that all the indoor air quality standards, or the vast majority of indoor air quality standards that were put in place, were actually not designed to protect us, but were designed to protect the equipment from dust. to keep the equipment running, not worrying about the participants in the room. So this work, this group actually is made up of not only engineers, but other designers in the HVAC space, aerosol scientists, public health doctors. So we put together everyone who we thought could look at this through a different lens and a different perspective. We brought them together, industrial hygienists as well, because we wanted some standards around masking in place. So we looked at it and they came up with six core recommendations. Now, these six core recommendations we refined over the last couple of years, but what is unique about this or amazing about this is they've changed the whole discussion. They drove a whole discussion around COVID from this droplet dogma to this airborne idea. And now the World Health Organization has finally acknowledged that yes, COVID is airborne, that the masks that they were recommending weren't adequate. But more importantly, our recommendations were adopted by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers, ASHRAE, who came out with two new standards around HVAC systems, especially during pandemics. And so our recommendations were actually in those new standards. So we actually have impacted standards on an international stage. So quite exciting work.

JEROME JAMES: That is incredible. It's fascinating to hear all the work and the impact that OSPE's task forces are making, not only in Ontario, but as you say, internationally. So we've talked about some wins that OSPE has had through advocacy, through the work that's being done. We've talked about the changes that are happening within the engineering landscape nationally. and we've talked about some of the wins that OSPE has had with regards to the conference and the work at large and the impact on society. What can you tell us about 2024? How can 2024 live up to the wins of 2023? Can you give us a little sneak peek of what's around the corner in the new year?

SANDRO PERRUZZA: Okay. Well, first off, I'm going to say, I don't know how we can do more, but, uh, again, as, as a director, Jerome, you're going to ask me to do more and you've actually directed me and where to do more. So one of our, one of the criticisms of OSPE we've heard over the years is that we're too GTA centric. We're too big city centric. So we've done a lot of events in the GTA. We've done events in Ottawa. So we need to get out. We need to get out because Ontario is a big province. And now that all the COVID restrictions are lifted, we need to get out and spread the message and spread the engagement. So we, we have developed a regional engagement plan. Uh, of how we are going to do events and engage engineers right across this big province. Um, you know, I'd love to be able to do 55 cities this year in 2024. We just don't have the budget or the scope for that. So we're going to, uh, identify key cities, uh, and then next in 2025, we'll identify five more key cities. And then a year after that, maybe do eight more new cities. So, uh, I can tell you, um, I don't even know this is out yet. So this is a. Breaking news, our conference next year will be in Windsor, Ontario, the lovely city of Windsor. Great support from Windsor Economic Development Corporation and other key players in that area who asked us to bring the conference there. We're going to be, yeah, I'm really excited about that. We're going to be doing We're going to be doing events both at the provincial and federal level around the province as well. So we're looking at doing an event to engage federal politicians in Ottawa next year. We're looking at doing an event in Northern Ontario. Uh, we're, we're looking to go to Thunder Bay and Sudbury are the two areas that we're, we've kind of penciled in. We'll see if those plans come through, uh, and, and of course, uh, Eastern Ontario as well somewhere. So this is, uh, some of the plans we're wanting to do. We want to, uh, focus our advocacy areas on topics that are specific and important for them. So what we want to do with our, with our events is do a consultation. So our OSPE members and other engineers in those regions can let us know what's important to them. We can let them know what we're doing. In those areas, for example, in Northern Ontario, we can talk about what we're doing in the mining area or around distributed energy systems. In Windsor, we can talk about autonomous vehicles and what we're doing around the automotive sector and around the manufacturing sector. And so on and so on. So those, those are some of the things that we are in a process of developing. Um, you know, uh, so don't hold me a hundred percent to everything I've said, uh, around the topics and the areas, but those are the ones that we're targeting right now and have put in and penciled into our plan. Of course, we're looking for partners to engage with us, to go out to those areas. So it'll all be contingent on the partners and who comes and asks us. The other thing that we're doing is we're having a conversation with PEO to look at what is the future of chapters. As I mentioned to you earlier in the podcast, a number of the different regulators have been severing ties with their chapters or branches. Some because they see that it's not really a regulatory activity and others because governments have stepped in and told them you need to sever ties with chapters. Your focus should be the public, not engineers. So we figured the time is right for OSPE to have that conversation PO and say, how can OSPE take over the chapters? How can we work and how can we transition those chapters over one year, two years, five years, whatever that timeframe is. We think eventually they have to come over. Eventually our government will step in and, and sever those ties. So we believe that it's best if we actually develop a transition plan, then the government doing it similar to what they did with removing the Canadian experience, right? This is something OSPEe was talking to PO about and say, let's figure this out. And finally the government said enough's enough and they put in legislation and now we're stuck with a plan that you have no input into.

JEROME JAMES: And that would supercharge regional engagement for OSPE in those areas.

SANDRO PERRUZZA: Absolutely. We actually, a number of municipalities have asked us to get involved in advocacy at a regional level or a municipal level. We don't have the bandwidth right now to do it all of them. We do with a few, but this will give local engineers a voice in their own community. Uh, and that's sorely missed in this province. So just imagine, you know, again, uh, I talked about Windsor or let's, let's actually, let's look at St. Thomas. Okay. St. Thomas is putting in a battery plant. Uh, the size of that plant in St. Thomas will be on a scale never seen before in this province. It will be the largest facility in Canada. Okay. So great. There's going to be a lot of design and construction that goes into this. But the other aspect is communities will have to be built to staff that battery plant once it's there. So how, what sort of infrastructure needs to be built? What sort of, uh, support structures need to be built? What roads, what's water and sewer mains? How are you going to make sure that that impact, that community has a low impact to the surrounding communities? Yeah. What is it going to do to the highway infrastructure? If you have a lot of people coming in from outside that city to go work at that plant. So how are the, those highways need to be expanded, local transportation, public transportation, how is that going to be supported? Well, these are all things that engineers have opinions on and, and should have a voice and saying in their local communities through, if those chapters were actually belong to OSPE. those local engineers can get together, look at the impact of those communities, and then legally go and lobby those municipal councils to ensure that any changes that happen, any plan that happen, is done based on sound engineering principles and design.

JEROME JAMES: Wow, it sounds like 2024 is shaping up to be the year of regional engagement. Hopefully, a lot of those plans come to fruition and that we start to engage those members that are asking for that change to happen. Before I let you go, we've talked a lot about the value OSPE brings to the engineering profession. But perhaps you can tell us a little bit about the value that the engineering profession can bring to OSPE. Why should engineers join the organization?

SANDRO PERRUZZA: That's a great question. I get that all the time. And we're at regional events. So, you know, trade shows and conferences. I talk to people and they say, you know, OSPE is great. OSPE is fantastic. You guys are doing all this wonderful stuff. And I say, well, thank you. And I asked, are you a member? And they say, no. And they say, well, you know, I'm getting all these benefits by not joining OSPE. Why should I join OSPE? You know, they're getting benefits to the profession. And I'm saying, well, yes, but I need you. You know, it's the Uncle Sam poster, right? Where I need you. We do. OSPE needs more members. It does. And for one, actually a number of different reasons. The first thing is, if you're not a member, you don't have a voice. Right. You, you don't get to weigh in on, you know, the advocacy things that we're doing. The policies that OSPE espouses to government, to the media, to the public, are not developed by OSPE staff. You know, it's developed by OSPE members. It's developed by engineers. This is what OSPE does. This is what me and my staff do. We provide a platform for the engineers to get together, discuss these issues, and then develop a policy paper or policy position that we then go and advocate together to government with, right? You cannot participate in that process unless you're an OSPE member, right? The price of admission is being an OSPE member. You can't sit on our task forces unless you're an OSPE member. So that's the first thing. So if you want to weigh in, if you have an opinion, if you want your voice to be heard, you got to join. Secondly, I need smart people. I, you know, I joke about this all the time. It's not really a joke. You know, when I go to these OSPE events, I'm the dumbest person in the room. I'm not an engineer. And oftentimes, you know, I hear the, I hear the, my members saying, this is what we need to be doing. We need to be doing this and this and this. And I look at them. I said, listen, explain it to me. Like I'm a five-year-old and they do. And that's great because then I was, I'm able to explain it to politicians as if they're five-year-olds. Uh, but the, the, but the reality is, The more members I have and the more subject matter experts I have, the better the policies that we're able to develop that we can go to government with. So that's the second thing, right? So one is you want to have a voice, you got to join. Second is I need you to join because The more, the smarter the people I have, the better the outputs I can have. And then the third aspect is the more members OSPE has, the louder the voice we have, the broader the reach we have, and the bigger the impact we can have. So the more members we have, the more we can do. So that is, you know, this is why I need people to join OSPE. Cause the loud, again, the more people, the louder I can amplify your voice. And that's what we're all about. We're about amplifying the voice of Montero's engineers.

JEROME JAMES: And where would the best place to find out more about OSPE be?

SANDRO PERRUZZA: I, our website now, I, I, I'm going to make a, one of the other things that's coming in 2024, uh, new technology. We are investing in new technology. So the first thing that we're doing, uh, was we're investing in new technology. I forget the name of the, of the organization, but we have a lot of content. We have a tremendous amount of content around all these different subject matter areas. A lot of it are webinars. We have obviously the webcast, the SAP podcast, white papers, all this. So what we're developing is we're developing, think of it as Amazon Prime. I was using Netflix, but I think Amazon Prime is probably the better example. If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can go on there with your subscription. So your subscription is your OSPE membership. You would go in there, you would do a search on, I don't know, artificial intelligence or, um, I don't know, clean water. Uh, and I would, and you do your search and out would come all the content we have on those areas, right? The white papers, the videos, the podcasts. And you can listen to them, you can watch them, you can read them. And now you've met your PD requirements through PO. Fantastic. Easy to find as well, right? You go into one place and in one area, you find all the OSPE content on a subject matter expert. However, we have with our Academy, what I didn't mention is we have a number of external partners who put their content on our Academy. Uh, and so they can now put their content on this platform as well. And the benefit to an Austrian member is I don't, they don't. They don't pay me to put their content on this platform, right? OSPE doesn't get a cent. Instead of me asking for money, what I've asked and what I demanded is that they offer that content to an OSPE member cheaper than they would to the general public. So if there's a course that they want to offer and put on my, my platform and it costs a hundred dollars for if they go through their own platform to go through my platform, you as an OSPE member will get it for $80. So that's, yeah, so that's, think of it as a Costco model, right? You go to Costco because you can get stuff cheaper than you would at the local grocery store. So that is the mindset is you want to put on my platform, I will provide you access to my platform and access to the members to access your PD courses. But you got to offer it at a discount. So that's, so that's the first thing that we're, we're, um, investing in. And the second thing is our website. We will have a brand new website in 2024. Uh, but right now go to our website, auspe.on.ca. Everything that we offer, everything we do is there. Um, so do your search. Like I said, right now, I, I, it's not the best searchable website, but that is coming in 2024.

JEROME JAMES: You've provided so much thoughtful insight on what OSPE has done in 2023, what we're planning to do in 2024. Do you have any final thoughts to leave our listeners with today?

SANDRO PERRUZZA: Yeah, I talked about how OSPE needs you and needs the engineer, but just look at where society's going. You know, you can either, you know, it's, you're in one or two camps. You're either scared where the society's going and where technology is going, or you're excited about where society's going and where technology is going. Right? If you're in either camp, you understand the importance of having that engineer voice in trying to direct where society's going to go. Um, so society needs you to be engaged and I don't care if you're engaged through joining OSPE or through some other organization, but for heaven's sake, what society needs is for engineers to get engaged in the discourse. And what's wonderful about engineers is they're thoughtful. The right, they examine things through multiple lenses, through an interdisciplinary approach. They use engineering principles, they're evidence-based and this, and in a society where you have, you know, tools that can distort information, share misinformation, you need the sound, you need the voice of a trusted source like engineers to come forward and speak the truth. And this is what society needs. This is what OSPE provides. And this is my ask, my final thought to engineers is get engaged because you have a great responsibility in this world and obligation.

JEROME JAMES: And I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Sandro, for sharing your time with us today.

SANDRO PERRUZZA: No, thank you for having me. You've been wonderful.

JEROME JAMES: And of course, thank you to our audience. If you haven't already, please be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And that wraps it up for our special year-end episode of Engineering the Future. Once again, we've been joined by Sandro Parousa, CEO of OSPE, who has really helped shed some light on the impact the organization is having, not only on the engineering profession, but on the lives of all Ontarians. I am your host Jerome James, you've been listening to Engineering the Future, and we'll see you next year.

FEMALE NARRATOR: From all of us at OSPE, the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, thanks for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.