Continental and the Chinese Tongji University held the yearly GEE conference in Shanghai.  The annual event in March 2011 brings together Continental representatives and universities to discuss about Global Engineering education. The admission of the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) in the GEE was the highlight of this year’s meeting.

The close connection with representatives of Tokyo Tech isn’t new. The first contact was established in 2008 during the workshop of the first Global Engineering Internship Program (GEIP) in Vienna. Before the past GEE shanghai meeting in March 2011, Tokyo Tech finally signed the contract in February 2011. “We are happy to welcome such an excellent university within our network”, said Harald Bochen, Vice President HR Services & Systems, Employer Branding and Recruiting.

Also the representatives of Tokyo Tech were glad about the admission of Tokyo Tech in the GEE. “We are happy to work together with such renowned international universities and one of the world’s biggest automotive suppliers to foster global engineering education for tomorrows leading engineers”, said Prof Masaaki Suzuki, Council Member and Vice Dean of Graduate School of Engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Beside the announcement of Tokyo Institute of Technology as new GEE University, the members of the network discussed about different topics.  For Continental the major purpose of GEE isn’t hiring people. “The primary aim of the initiative is still to underline the growing significance of engineering sciences in the globalized economy”, said Bochen.

Consensus was in the fact that all members of GEE are well connected. So the network is definitely kind of a big think tank. On the other hand it seems good if just fewer partners working on an idea and giving feedback about experience to the other partners.

All members agreed that industries and universities should work closer together to understand better the needs of industry and the trends to improve college education continuously. Students must also be involved in early stages in industry sponsored research projects on future trends and technologies.