Building peace from the ground up

August 2, 2010 | Ron Bygness

I happened upon a short press release recently that featured our engineering friends from Geocomp in Massachusetts and wanted to share this good news story.

Five delegates from the Iraq Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the Foundation for Technical Education were recently hosted by Geocomp Corp., a geoengineering firm based in Boxborough, Mass. In additional to touring Geocomp, the delegation visited local colleges and vocational schools.

Rachid Hankour (on the right in photo above), vice president and director of lab systems at Geocomp, served as the primary host. A native of Algeria, Hankour speaks Arabic, although he discovered all the Iraqi representatives were fluent in English.

The excursion was sponsored by UN-HABITAT, the United Nations Human Settlements Program. The purpose of the exchange program is to promote social and environmentally sustainable cities and to provide adequate shelter through better understanding of the most up-to-date developments in construction and building technologies.

Schools included in the tours were Tufts University, University of Massachusetts/Lowell, Merrimack College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Minuteman Career and Technical High School, and Nashoba Valley Technical High School.

"Due to the war and the regulations imposed by the last regime, Iraq is suffering from a shortage of equipment and is a society with many needs," noted Moneer Hameed Tolephih, one of the scholars. He added, "Our strategy is to help develop a good relationship and cooperation with schools and universities in the United States."

Hankour expanded, "This initial visit was a great opportunity for both parties to develop a personal connection and determine how we can help each other."

Ron Bygness is the editor of Geosynthetics magazine.

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