Mott MacDonald’s Umang Patel has been appointed to the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Digital Panel. Working with other members of the Panel, Umang will help to provide strategic advice to the Government to influence UK policy and respond to consultations. In addition, he will be contributing to thought leadership around key issues in support of the 158,000 IET members, and beyond.
Umang is a technical director at Mott MacDonald and has more than 20 years’ experience across the water, transport and energy sectors and benefitted from a wide range of perspectives from roles in contractor, consultancy and joint venture organisations. His passion for engineering and deep technical expertise have helped deliver some of the largest and most complex design and build projects throughout the UK, Europe, Singapore, the Middle East and Bangladesh. By championing the use of technology and digital tools he has helped to support the drive for the development of more sustainable solutions which has led to better social outcomes.
A member of their Global Water Sector Board, Umang’s focus is on effectively combining the best people from an extensive talent pool with the optimum technology to drive consistency and efficiencies on project delivery. He is also Mott MacDonald’s global practice leader for electrical, instrumentation, control and automation engineering, responsible for providing strategic leadership and direction to the business.
The Digital Panel was set up in 2019 to create fresh opportunities to generate discussion as well as to consider specific themes including cybersecurity pathways, artificial intelligence and electronic voting. The panel will continue to review and develop this focus and also build on new areas, such as digital twin, augmented analytics, and the future of work.
Ahmed Kotb, IET’s Digital Lead, said: “Within the information technology and communication sectors, the IET has established, and maintains, a strong profile with government, industry and other stakeholders and I’m pleased to welcome Umang to the Digital Panel. His broad industry experience and specific mechanical and electrical engineering expertise will contribute to the panel’s a core principle to connect the three main areas of digital: digital disruption, engineering a future and societal impact. I look forward to working with him.”
Commenting on his appointment, Umang said: “I know that our industry is at various stages of maturity on a journey towards new digital ways of working, but we’ve reached a point where the challenges and opportunities for society are dependent on engineering. Many of these challenges have digital at their core, are very complex and becoming increasingly urgent. At Mott MacDonald we drive digital transformation, delivering social, economic and environmental value by connecting innovation to outcomes and I’m delighted to be supporting the IET and the Digital Panel on this path.”