The ITACET Foundation was officially created in Lausanne at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) on Friday 25 September 2009.
The launching meeting gathered the following Founders:
• Abdullah AL-MOGBEL (Saudi Arabia)
• Brazilian Tunnelling Committee – CBT (Brazil)
• CUC - Stiftung Internationales Zentrum für Geotechnik und Untertagbau –(Switzerland)
• DAR AL-HANDASAH Consultants (Egypt)
• D2 CONSULT International GmbH (Austria)
• GEODATA (Italy)
• GEOTECHMIN (Bulgaria)
• HERRENKNECHT AG (Germany)
• ITA - International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
• ITA AUSTRIA - Austrian National Committee of the ITA – (Austria)
• LEOBEN University (Austria)
• Ricky P. LOVAT (Canada)
• NV BEKAERT (Belgium)
Among the Founders, the following members constitute the inaugural Council of Foundation
• Abdullah AL-MOGBEL (Saudi Arabia), President • Piergiorgio GRASSO (Geodata, Italy), Vice-President
• Felix AMBERG (CUC, Switzerland), Secretary
• Martin HERRENKNECHT (Herrenknecht, Germany)
• Martin KNIGHTS (ITA, UK)
• Sherif WISSA AGAIBY (DAR AL-HANDASAH Consultants, Egypt)
The Council of Foundation held its first meeting and decided the following, among others:
• To approve to Statutes and By-Laws of the Foundation
• To nominate the members of the Executive Board as follows:
- André ASSIS (Brazil), Chairman
- Claude BERENGUIER (France), Executive Director
- Daniele PEILA (Italy), Technical Director
- Bettina MONNIER-GUGGER (Switzerland), Secretary
- Joseph PUGNOT (Switzerland), Treasurer
• To nominate the members of the Committee of Surveyors as follows:
- Koichi ONO (Japan)
- Sebastiano PELIZZA (Italy)
- Raymond STERLING (USA)
• To approve the budget and the programme of activities for the period July 2009 – June 2010.
Finally, the Executive Board presented to the Council the portfolio of education and training actions, including the contents of 6 short-courses and four more under preparation. All activities of the Foundation, from now on, will be available in web site: foundation.itacet.org
The programme of the Training Session allowed to many ITA Experts from all around the world to come and teach on the different aspects of tunnelling:
• the Fundamentals of Tunnelling
• Choice of the Construction Methods
• Engineering and Design : Site Investigation, Structural Model, Calculation Design, Instrumentation, Ground Improvement, Risk Management and Contracts
• Specific Aspects for Road Tunnel Construction, Operation, Health and Safety
1 200 participants from Gulf and Arab countries were registered to the Workshop on Underground Structures in Hot Climate Conditions held on 8-9 December with the Regional Congress of the IRF and organized by the Saudi Ministry of Transport
ITA speakers delivered speeches on :
• why go underground for road construction
• the importance of the design and related risks
• safety during construction and operation
• conventional methods for construction
• mechanization of the excavation
• risk management and contracts for construction
The Foundation is organizing the annual training session for young professionals at the occasion of the ITA World Tunnelling Congresses; in 2010, the participants will be mainly coming from Canada.
The corresponding programme, here enclosed was prepared in coordination with the Tunnelling Association of Canada and with the ITA-CET Committee.
The Foundation is accepting applications of young professionals from developing countries, in order to select some to be invited to the WTC 2010 Training Session.
Download the programme of WTC 2010 Training Session>>
2010 - Sochi (Russia) Foundation Seminar ITACET
2011 - Helsinki (Finland) Training session WTC 2011
From now on, our website: foundation.itacet.org will keep you updated on the most recent actions of the Foundation. To Know more, please have a look at our "NEWS" rubric.
The Foundation would not exist without the precious support of our founders, sponsors and supporters. To know who they are, visit our "FOUNDERS & DONORS" rubric.
In our rubric "ACTIVITIES" you can download the tentative courses of our current seminars and training sessions. You will also learn more about our actions and on what the Foundation can do for you.
To know more about the administrative and legal basis of the Foundation, please read our "ORGANISATION" rubric.
The "CONTACT" rubric gives you all the details you need to contact our permanent secretariat or our board members.
There you find also an access map to reach our offices at the EPFL of Lausanne.
The Tunnelling and Underground Space industry has just been endowed with a specific tool for the professional education and training of its young specialists: the ITACET Foundation for Education and Training on Tunnelling and Underground Space Use was officially created on September 25th, 2009 in Lausanne. The Foundation benefits from the support of the network of ITA’s experts and of the network of universities, industry, suppliers etc gathered in the ITA-CET Committee for the implementation of its training and educational actions.
I am particularly pleased to sign the Editorial of the first Newsletter of the Foundation.
The vocation of the Foundation concerns first of all the training of future specialists in countries not having a long experience in underground works so as to inform them about technologies, state of the art and the way to carry out the studies, the design and the works in the very specific field of tunnelling and underground space.
The Foundation will also enable to strengthen the links between universities, research centres and the industry especially between countries having a long experience and such which just have started to use the underground space.
As you will read in the development of the Newsletter, the Foundation has already carried out its first significant action in Riyadh Saudi Arabia last December, and is about to carry out other actions in the first months of 2010, notably in Sochi, Russia in April and in Vancouver, Canada in May.
The Foundation is ready to react to all request of training and education from countries represented or not within ITA as well as from any other organisation with whatever types of professionals working in the very specific sector of tunnelling and underground space: Technicians, lawyers, financers, environmentalists, safety officers, designers, contractors etc.
The President Abdullah Al-Mogbel