On 11 November 2016 in the Senate Room of the University Politehnica of Bucharest, the legendary President of Air Canada, Călin Rovinescu was awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by the Rector of UPB, Mihnea Costoiu, in presence of His Excellency, Kevin Hamilton, the ambassador of Canada in Bucharest.

Laudatio was presented by the Chancellor of UPB, Prof. dr. ing. Iulian Ripoșan

The speech of Mr. Călin Rovinescu, President of Air Canada:

“Thank you! Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be here today. It is a moment of pride, and in the same time very emotional for me  – receiving the title of Doctor Honoris Causa. As you see, my Romanian is rusty. As you learned from the presentation made by the Rector, I left Romania when I was 5 years old, together with my family. Before coming here, I had the opportunity to read some interesting facts about the history of almost 200 years of this university. It is a privilege for me to be invited to join the family of the University Politehnica of Bucharest. My latest university diploma (except this of today) dates from 1980. So much has been changed since then and until now… In 1980, the Internet and the mobile phones were of limited use. The same for personal computers. In 1980, digital meant to use your fingers to press the buttons of a cassette player to listen to music. Since then, we had the privilege to see before our eyes how the world has evolved and radically transformed. Especially in the technology level. We live now in a world where the things that we love are everywhere, changes and innovations being for many of us, the favorite weapons.

Let us look at the aeronautical industry and the astronautical one. Think for a moment how many things have changed with that 12 seconds long flight of the Wright brothers. Today, aviation is faster, safer, less noisy, more environment friendly, and from many perspectives, digital. Boeing challenges Airbus, Airbus challenges Boeing. Bombardier challenges Embraer and the Chinese have just joined the party. The low cost operators made the legacy carriers (such as Air Canada, British Airways, Lufthansa or Air France) to be more agile, more innovative. Starting with that 12 seconds flight, the airplanes are now flying non-stop for 14,5 hours, even longer, to any remote place in the world, using the busy route network worldwide.

Now, aviation is more competitive than ever before and it should stay that way! When it comes to global competition, you cannot place innovation in a legal framework, but you can inhibit it just by being average as education level. Let us admit openly: mediocrity is not enough any more these days in science, technology, design, business or universities. Even more so in a hypercompetitive field such as aviation, where risk taking and speed will play a greater role in defining success. The truth is that you need a great deal of change, of challenges and innovation to succeed in a globalized world. To succeed you need an innovative agenda, new stuff, not just repeating the same things that you have constantly done until now and hope for other results. From this perspective, I like the thoughts of Thomas Friedman, editorial at the New York Times and author of the book ”The world is flat”, who quoted President Obama with a declaration from November 2010: “And we should be able to agree now that it makes no sense for China to have better rail systems than us, and Singapore having better airports than us.  And we just learned that China now has the fastest supercomputer on Earth — that used to be us.  They’re making investments because they know those investments will pay off over the long term.” We wonder how the Chinese manage to build railways and airports faster and better than us, while in some parts of North America and in Europe, infrastructure projects (bridges, roads) are debated for 5 or 10 years before deciding to build them or not. In a supercompetitive industry, we cannot go on like that.

In business, avoiding mediocrity implies taking some risks: proposing innovative goods or services, even if we must operate outside our comfort zone. People are always afraid of risks. However, in order to progress, the risk, the risk of change, and even the risk of failure, are not only good, but I would say imperative. Avoiding mediocrity requires to adopt ”next generation” technology. Sometimes, it takes time to see results, but the best tech companies constantly operate in Beta to succeed in the global arena. Thanks to my job, I had the chance to travel in many emerging markets: Brasil, China, India, South Africa, Turkey, United Arab Emirates. All these interesting markets have 3 elements in common: speed, flexibility and the apprehension to take risks.”

(NN The original speech in English was not available. The above is retro translated in English from Romanian, except for the President Obama quote. Any possible mistake belongs to the translator)

 

0 Comments

Young Aviation Network Contest

Courtesy of Mr. Mihail Ionescu, Director of Air Transport Directorate of the Ministry of Transport, we announce a student contest to select a national representative of the Young Aviation Network, which will gather between 1-15 July 2020 at Eurocontrol. Undergraduate...

Engineers Openings Tarom

  Courtesy of our Alumnus Eng. Constantin Petrescu, we inform you that the National Company TAROM recruits engineers. More details: https://www.tarom.ro/sites/default/files/u1348/anunt_recrutare_ing_ap_bord_0.pdf...

Dean 2020-2024 Contest

The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering of the University Politehnica of Bucharest announces the public contest for the position of Dean in the 2020-2024 mandate. Applicants should submit applications on 6-7 January 2020. UPB staff or any other university staff from...

Faculty Office Special Schedule

During Winter Holidays (14 December 2019 – 5 January 2020) the Faculty Office is closed. For urgent matters please address an email to inginerie.aerospatiala@upb.ro. We wish you Merry Christmas and the Best New Year!    

HYPER @ UCF

Students from UPB/FIA are invited to apply for a DoD sponsored research internship at the University of Central Florida. The details of the invitation can be found below. Dear Sterian,   Because of your strong connection with undergraduate students who may pursue...

Events of the French Institute in Bucharest

Tuesday, 19 November 2019, French Institute in Bucharest, 7 pm. Projection of the movie 16 levers de soleil will be followed by a debate with Ms. Mioara Mandea from the National center for Space Studies of  France (CNES) and Marius Piso of the Romanian Space Agency....

DiscoverEU

DiscoverEU winter round registrations will start on Thursday, November 7, 2019 at 12:00 pm (CET) and will end on Thursday, November 28, 2019 at 12:00 pm (CET). DiscoverEU is an initiative of the European Union that gives you the opportunity to discover Europe through...

Erasmus 2020

  The interview for the ERASMUS competition will take place on Wednesday, October 30, 2019, from 1 pm to 3 pm, at the faculty office. UPDATE 31/10/2019: Results are available here.