from ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 2 Issue 3 (p.21)
The 5th South African Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference
Reported by Dr SW Jacobsz Pr Eng, Chairman of SAICE Geotechnical Division
The 5th Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference (YGEC) to take place in South Africa was hosted at the Camelot Conference Centre in Hillcrest, Durban from 20 to 22 August 2008. The conference continues a proud tradition of Young Geotechnical Engineers Conferences organised every three or four years by the Geotechnical Division of the South African Institution of Civil Engineers. The conference was the seventh YGEC ever to take place on the African continent and was preceded by the Second African Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference which took place in Tunisia in 2007.
The YGE conferences in South Africa follow the model of the British conferences, the first of which was hosted at City University, London, in 1982 which was initiated and organised by Prof John Atkinson. The aim is to provide a less formal environment for young and first-time authors to publish and present technical papers in a conference environment. The conferences are open to engineers and engineering geologists of 35 years and younger at the time of submitting their abstracts.
South Africa is currently preparing to host of the 2010 Soccer World Cup Final which led to the theme of the conference being “2010 and Beyond”. With undoubtedly the largest ever number of mega-projects currently under construction in South African history, the current boom in the civil engineering and construction industries contributed to the high standard of the papers received. All papers were peer reviewed by young engineers serving on the organising committee and returned to the authors for corrections (if required) before publication in the conference proceedings. Papers were limited to the length of 10 A4 pages printed double spaced. The South African Civil Engineering and Construction Industries contributed generous sponsorship to subsidise the conference registration cost. The platinum sponsor was ESOR (Pty) Ltd, a leading South African Geotechnical Engineering construction company. The gold sponsors were Steffanuti & Bressan (Pty) Ltd and Sanyati Piling (Pty) Ltd. Several generous sponsorships were also received from International companies currently active in South Africa, e.g. Bauer, Naue and others.
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