UOIT receives millions from engineering education partnership

April 1, 2008

To mark the occasion of UOIT becoming a PACE institution, Dr.Ronald Bordessa, left, president of UOIT, was presented with a plaque from representatives of the PACE partners. From left are Deb Tarr, Worldwide Public Sector Workstation Marketing Manager, Hewlett Packard; Jeff Hill, Client Executive, EDS; Phil Taylor, President, Siemens PLM Software-Canada; Greg Parker, Engineering Manager, Engineering and Product Planning, General Motors of Canada; Lynne Zucker, Director of Education and Research Markets, Sun Microsystems of Canada; and Elaine Chapman-Moore, Manager, Global PACE Partnership, General Motors.

To give engineering graduates a competitive edge within the automotive industry, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) welcomed contributions worth millions of dollars from Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE), a partnership including General Motors, EDS, Hewlett-Packard, Siemens PLM Software and Sun Microsystems.

Ronald Bordessa, president of UOIT, expressed his gratitude at the donation and said it would give the school’s student a wealth of resources. "Together with our unique programs, research work and state-of-the-art facilities," he said, "partnering with PACE positions UOIT as a leader in the continued innovation and transformation of the automobile manufacturing industry."

The in-kind investment includes state-of-the-art computer-based hardware, engineering software and student and instructor training and academic support. With this, UOIT becomes the sixth PACE Canadian university.

"The automotive industry is undergoing an exciting transformation where innovation and R&D will be a core advantage," said Greg Parker, engineering manager of General Motors of Canada. "Investing in future automotive engineers is critical to ensure that our next generation of employees has the skills and knowledge to compete globally."

The PACE investments support UOIT's General Motors of Canada Automotive Centre of Excellence announced last month, creating a new advanced automotive technology cluster centered at UOIT that links together the best Canadian companies, universities, students and engineers with companies in the Canadian automotive supply chain.

"Today's leading manufacturing and technology companies compete on the basis of time to market, product cost, quality and innovation," said Phil Taylor, vice-president of Canada operations with Siemens PLM Software. "It's quite clear that today's best students in top programs, like the program at UOIT, must have the opportunity to gain experience with technology that supports these objectives."

UOIT associate professor Remon Pop-Iliev has assumed the role of lead engineering integrator on UOIT's PACE integration team. His research work provides meaningful contributions toward substantially improving Canada's capacity in design engineering with a primary focus on the automotive and related sectors.
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