The Engineers: Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851
Each summer, the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 holds an Albertopolis event in partnership with the BBC World Service bringing together three ground-breaking engineers and a public audience.
Big Ideas has worked on this event on behalf of the Royal Commission since 2016 when a panel of civil engineers shared their experiences of the world’s most ambitious canals, tall buildings and bridges at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Engineers takes place in a different setting each year with robotics at the Science Museum in 2017, genetic engineering at the Natural History Museum in 2018, space flight engineering at Imperial College in 2019, re-engineering for the pandemic in 2020 on zoom and in 2021 a return to the Victoria and Albert for engineering clean energy.
The BBC records The Engineers and they are broadcast on TV and radio.
The world’s tallest buildings, robots with feelings, pandemic adaptations, satellites with step ladders… conversations taking place at The Engineers events are recorded and broadcast by the BBC World Service and shared with hundreds of millions around the world.
Watch / listen to previous broadcasts in the links below:
2022 The Engineers: Future of Cars with Linda Zhang, Jamie Shotton and Arjo van der Ham with an audience at the Science Museum and a global audience online.
2021 The Engineers: Clean Energy with Danielle Merfeld, Kristian Holmefjord and Henry Snaith with a socially-distanced audience at the Victoria and Albert Museum and a global audience online.
2020 The Engineers: Re-engineering the future with Linda Miller, Luke Leung, Rebecca Shipley and Carlo Ratti joining an audience online.
2019 The Engineers: Space flight with Anuradha TK, Adam Steltzner and David Parker with an audience in Imperial College at the Great Exhibition Road Festival.
2018 The Engineers: Bio-engineering with Madeleine van Oppen, Gebisa Ejeta and Kathy Niaken with an audience at the Natural History Museum.
2017 The Engineers: the Rise of the Robots featured Ashitey Trebi-Ollennu, Ayanna Howard and Paul Newman with an audience at the Science Museum.
2016 The Engineers: Civil engineering featured Bill Baker, Ilya Marotta and Michel Virlogeux with an audience at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
And see https://www.big-ideas.org/aspire-to-engineer/ for the schools outreach project, Aspire to Engineer