Connecting small and medium businesses with academia at the GEDC Industry Forum

Paul Gilbert is the CEO of Quanser, a provider of robotics and mechatronics-based teaching and research equipment for the global academic community. After studying mechanical engineering at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, Paul Gilbert started his career in the aerospace industry. After moving to Canada to complete his MBA, he fell in love with the country and spent the next decade working in the energy management sector and then packaging and training industries. It wasn’t until he began working with Quanser did he really find his professional passion and over the past two decades has helped the company grow from six to 70 employees. He’s a regular at the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC) Industry Forum.

What initially drew you to the GEDC Industry forum?

During a 2016 event in South Korea, then GEDC Chair Peter Kilpatrick and Petrus CEO Kirsten Williamson invited me to join discussions about setting up an industry-academic forum and developing a value proposition. There can be tension in conversations about how university systems prepare graduates for industry, and I felt this concept of a forum was incredibly valuable.

Considering Quanser’s work in developing robust undergraduate teaching platforms, there’s an obvious business rationale for wanting to participate. Networking with people in leadership positions at universities around the world is extremely valuable for me to understand trends and what's important so that I can bring that back to Quanser so that we can provide the right kind of products and services to the community. It's a little bit unique in the sense that most other small businesses don't have that direct connection with universities.

I am also really interested in how we can better prepare students for early career. As a smaller company, we don’t have the onboarding resources of larger companies—I can’t bring in 10 engineers and give them six months of focus training. When I talk to academics about what I’m looking for in a new engineer, I explain that the candidate has already demonstrated to people on my team that they are technically capable, so when I interview them, I care about who they are as a person. Authentic experiences are another piece of the puzzle. We want to make sure that when students use our equipment, it's meaningful to them and they can see the connection between what they're learning and what's possible. As early as possible, students should be exposed to applications of the theory so that they're not learning in the abstract.

Can you think of one of your experiences at the GEDC Industry Forum that made this a unique event?

The Dynamic Design Groups (DDGs) are extremely valuable because you can pose a question and you hear different opinions and debate around the table while sharing actual challenges we face in academic and industry spaces. There isn’t right or wrong, just different orientations that we can bring together. At one event, I facilitated focused discussions with rotating groups. In these ten-minute sessions I met every participant and learned a multitude of different insights on a topic of relevance.

There's got to be at least 10 people from the academic sector who I would now consider close colleagues or friends. I've attended several of these events and the ability to have these conversations over the course of two days in a convivial environment that includes people who come back again and again allows you to develop a stronger relationship where you can go beneath the surface. I can bounce ideas off representatives from large companies and learn about what kind of skills they want their engineers to learn. Then, we can think about that as we build our curriculum and processes and products. Over the years, this has helped us improve our capabilities.

Why should small and medium business leaders participate in the next event?

Small and medium businesses, which can represent up to 70 percent of a community’s economy, need people to have the ability to contribute early. In building stronger relationships, alumni in our company are going back to their institutions and sharing their experiences with students to help them better understand some of the professional skills required beyond the technical pieces.

Moreover, there’s a value there in that every campus in the world that has underutilized equipment that could be accessible to small businesses. Further value of university interaction is access world class researchers. Small businesses can be ahead of the game by engaging with researchers in the field that's of interest to the company.

You cannot expect to create a fully formed engineer at graduation, but there are ways you can make them better prepared. Bringing industry and academia closer together through events like the GEDC Industry Forum can help drive the conversations and inspire initiatives to better prepare students for the early years of their careers.

Find out more about the topics Paul and his team have contributed to in the 2017 Fontainebleau Event Report, 2019 Bucharest Event Report, 2020 Idea Book and 2021 Idea Book.