North America zone Events

This year, we are refreshing our annual event format, replacing the traditional sit-down dinner with an evening lecture and buffet reception. The programme will retain two key highlights, our Chair's Address and presentation of the Engineering Excellence Award, while offering even greater opportunities for networking in a more relaxed setting. The evening's keynote speaker will be Garret Kavanagh of Openreach, this year's NI Engineering Excellence Award recipient, recognised for his outstanding contribution to the rollout of full fibre broadband across Northern Ireland. Drawing on his experience leading major telecommunications infrastructure projects, including the achievement of Northern Ireland's full fibre coverage milestone, Garret will share insights into delivering complex engineering programmes and connecting rural and hard-to-reach communities through next-generation digital infrastructure.

Hearing is the detection and interpretation of pressure waves. It attempts to answer the what and where questions, as well as interpreting the sound. Human hearing is complex and very sophisticated. The talk will review how hearing works from the outer ear to the auditory cortex. Complex systems like hearing can fail in many different ways and hearing aids can help for some of these. The speaker will discuss the basics of digital hearing aids and which hearing impairments they can and cannot help with.