The Open University (OU) is proud to commemorate National Engineering Day on 13 November by celebrating extraordinary engineering talent.<\/p>\n
In collaboration with the Royal Academy of Engineering, a striking new piece of digital artwork will be virtually projected onto the OU\u2019s Walton Hall building in Milton Keynes highlighting the contributions of four inspirational engineers.<\/p>\n
The digital artwork will be showcased virtually using the OU\u2019s new XR Studios<\/a>, a state-of-the-art extended reality production facility that has helped the university expand its remote and distance learning with augmented and virtual reality.<\/p>\n The digital artwork places a spotlight on OU graduate Alice Kan, an inspiring figure in the engineering community who completed her Professional Certificate in Management at the OU in 2009.<\/p>\n Central to this year\u2019s National Engineering Day celebrations is also the unveiling of a statue of Alice in London, created by renowned visual artist Kelly Anna.<\/p>\n Alice, a Macclesfield-based manufacturing engineer, played a crucial role in the mass production of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and continues to work on vaccines for diseases such as Ebola at the Sabin Vaccine Institute.<\/p>\n Alice said about her statue: \u201cBeing honoured in statue form is a very unique experience and not something many people can say. I really hope my statue encourages people to understand more about engineering, what engineers do and why it is a great career for anyone who’s got a curiosity for wanting to make things work better.\u201d<\/p>\n The statue marks a historic first, as it is among the very few in the UK dedicated to living female engineers. Only 3% of UK statues represent non-royal women, with even fewer highlighting contemporary engineers.<\/p>\n Professor Josie Fraser, Interim Vice-Chancellor of The Open University, said:<\/p>\n “We are immensely proud to see our graduate, Alice Kan, celebrated for her transformative contributions to engineering and public health. Alice’s journey from OU student to a pioneering engineer is truly inspirational, and it is always rewarding to see our alumni go on to achieve such remarkable success.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWe hope the public art features across the country inspire young people to see engineering as a creative and fulfilling career that\u2019s open to everyone.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The art installations will be available for public viewing across the UK on Wednesday 13 November. The OU\u2019s Walton Hall artwork can be experienced virtually on YouTube<\/a>. Alternatively, everyone is also invited to visit ThisIsEngineering.com to view the various UK artwork installations online and learn more about the four inspirational engineers that are featured.<\/p>\n In addition to the virtual reality artwork, the OU will also be sharing videos from engineering colleagues throughout the day on social media. Follow @OU_STEM on X<\/a> and The Open University: STEM\u00a0on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Open University (OU) is proud to commemorate National Engineering Day on 13 November by celebrating extraordinary engineering talent. In collaboration with the Royal Academy of Engineering, a striking new piece of digital artwork will be virtually projected onto the OU\u2019s Walton Hall building in Milton Keynes highlighting the contributions of four inspirational engineers. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":26200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[861,1525,1640],"class_list":["post-26172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-mct","tag-faculty-of-stem","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26172"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26191,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26172\/revisions\/26191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}