Dr. Steve Mackay is the founder of the Engineering Institute of Technology. He firmly believes in Nelson Mandela’s mantra that, “Education is the most powerful weapon which we can use to change the world.” His leadership has inspired EIT’s unique and distinctive approach to engineering education.

Since 2008 three core objectives define the essence of the institute:

Collaborating comprehensively with industry to ensure graduates are job-ready.
Employing platforms of learning to facilitate student accessibility and engagement.
Keeping the business of education student-centric.

Dr. Mackay has enjoyed a varied career in engineering, having worked in automation, data acquisition, instrumentation, data communications, and process control throughout Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America over the past 35 years. He has successfully pioneered the application of new technologies in Australia and overseas, installing industrial data communication systems and implementing live online education, (including remote laboratories), for engineering students worldwide. Dr. Mackay has been involved in a range of industries, including power stations, mining, mineral processing, oil/gas/petrochemical plants, and platforms. He has presented courses on industrial data communications, data acquisition, instrumentation, and process control to over 30,000 engineers and technicians worldwide for clients such as NASA, Rolls Royce, and BP. He has also co-authored and edited 25 engineering books that have been published across the world. Dr. Mackay is a Fellow of Engineers Australia with a license to practice as a Chemical, Mechanical, and Electrical Chartered Professional Engineer. As Dean of the Engineering Institute of Technology, Dr. Mackay leads the institute in providing microcredentials and engineering qualifications to over 2000 students per year from 140 countries. He has an unswerving focus on student outcomes and on excellence in education.

The Dean’s Welcome - first intake of on campus students

February 12, 2018 1:59 pm
A speech to EIT students embarking on their studies: February 2018 Good morning Ladies and Gentleman As I stand in front of you I am sure you are contemplating the years stretching ahead with a mixture of excitement and apprehension; wondering what they will bring you. To come to a...Read More

Engineering and technology trends: you need to STEEM forward vigorously

February 7, 2018 3:15 pm
Image credit: ©everythingpossible/Dollar Photo Club At a recent function for would-be students of our engineering college on the need for more of a STEM focus, I was sharply corrected by a good colleague who remarked that we should think rather of STEEM: science, technology, engineering, entrepreneurship and mathematics. And he...Read More

Bobsledding: the engineering competition

February 6, 2018 11:54 am
The Winter Olympics are upon us. The opening ceremony airs on February 9th, 2018. Over the course of the competition in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the feats of many engineers will be on display too. In fact it will be hard to find an event untouched by engineering. (Some of the...Read More

So many disciplines, so little time

February 6, 2018 10:50 am
The future is yours for the taking. This good ole’ adage has driven many into PANIC MODE; there is undue stress for young people when it comes to picking a vocation. A fresh batch of school-leavers have just begun their academic year and many will have chosen the discipline of...Read More

Structurally deficient: America’s bridge problem

February 6, 2018 10:38 am
New data generated from the U.S. Department of Transportation has revealed that more than 54,000 American bridges are structurally deficient. America has 612,677 bridges. Americans cross these bridges 174 million times daily. One in three bridges are in need of repair, and one in three Interstate highway bridges have also...Read More

Indian engineering may be going to the moon but education isn’t

February 6, 2018 10:31 am
It may be a landmark year for Indian engineering. This year, at the end of March, India’s Space Research Organization (ISRO) will land an unmanned rover on the moon. They will be sending an orbiter, a lander, and a rover in what it is being called the Chandrayaan-2 mission. Directly...Read More

Animal testing in engineering - Volkswagen apologizes

February 6, 2018 10:25 am
The largest manufacturing plant in the world is in Wolfsburg, West Germany. It is a car manufacturing plant that belongs to none other than Volkswagen. It covers an area of 6.5 million square miles. It is so vast that employees are able to cycle around the company’s main headquarters. The...Read More

Spotlight on: Michelle Simmons

February 1, 2018 2:26 pm
Image: Jordan Haynes Professor Michelle Simmons is the most recently crowned Australian of the Year. A true testament to quantum physics, science more broadly, women, and Australia - we take a quick look at Simmons' work, and the achievements that led to her becoming the recipient of this most prestigious...Read More

China’s train craze culminates in late-night railway construction

January 31, 2018 2:49 pm
The Chinese may be on their way to setting a new world record...for a railway construction job in the Fujian Province in Southern China. On the 19th of January 2018 something quite remarkable happened when 1,500 workers were tasked with constructing a railway designed to connect the city of Longyan...Read More

Are engineering societies necessary anymore?

January 31, 2018 2:39 pm
National Society of Professional Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers, Engineers Without Borders, American Nuclear Society, American Society of Safety Engineers, Biomedical Engineering Society, Institute of Transportation Engineers, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Order of the Engineer, Institute of Industrial and System Engineers.   This is enough to make your head...Read More

Institutions spreading their wings with online engineering courses

January 30, 2018 2:22 pm
Online education is rapidly innovating. Education traditionalists may have thought that if courses were to ever go online those without labs would be the first - never did they anticipate that engineering courses might beat the arts to this platform that crosses borders. Colleges and their online offerings are growing...Read More

Education industry continues to morph

January 25, 2018 12:45 pm
Online learning is continuously morphing as education industries try to find the best practice in educating and training students across the globe. With technologies enabling new methods of learning many brick-and-mortar institutions are losing traction.   Kevin Carey, an Ohio State University Masters graduate, published a book in 2015 named...Read More

New opportunities with an upturn in Western Australia

January 23, 2018 1:56 pm
More jobs, more opportunities, and more money. Western Australia (WA) is a state sighing with relief after it was announced that the economic downturn is turning around. Engineering industry professionals may find solace in the fact that WA economy is gradually gathering momentum. It is finding its rightful place as...Read More

Memristor is the word

January 22, 2018 3:26 pm
Memristor is a word that you are likely to hear more of in the next couple of years. The burgeoning world of the IoT (Internet of Things) is driving the need for wireless connectivity and synchronisation across devices. Its name is a hybrid of memory and resistor – and its...Read More

Mudslides wreak havoc in California

January 22, 2018 9:55 am
On the 9th of January 2018 a destructive mudslide, in Santa Barbara and Ventura County, California, hit the community of Montecito the hardest. Houses and businesses were literally swept off of their foundations. Days later the death toll had risen to 20 with scores more injured.   100 homes were...Read More

The Cape of No Hope: Engineering to the rescue?

January 22, 2018 9:20 am
Cape Town, South Africa, may become the first modern city in the world to run out of water. This headline is being strewn across news networks around the world. Time is ticking toward ‘Zero Day’ - a day in April when the Cape is set to run out of water....Read More

China’s solar highway shut down by thieves

January 16, 2018 3:13 pm
China’s solar highway shut down by thieves A highway built out of robust solar panels that generate energy throughout the day has actually become a reality thanks to Chinese engineers. The engineers have dubbed it the very first photovoltaic highway the world has ever seen. (Although France opened one of...Read More

Exoskeletons give assembly line workers a second life

January 16, 2018 2:57 pm
The future of automation is set in stone. It seems clear that industrial robots will replace human beings on the assembly line inside most, if not all, factories in the future. Car manufacturers have already seen many of the tasks on the assembly line replaced by robots - tasks that,...Read More

Why does the world need Mechanical Engineers?

January 11, 2018 1:18 pm
Because they create solutions and solve problems Mechanical engineers develop processes and they design and implement the moving parts in a range of industries. They are needed on all stages of a product, from research and development to design and manufacture, through to installation and final commissioning.   Most industries...Read More

The college students who exposed Volkswagen

January 11, 2018 12:48 pm
Like water off of a duck’s back, Volkswagen’s Dieselgate controversy has not deterred consumers from buying their vehicles. Autoblog estimates that VW’s worldwide overall sales reached “around 10.7 million cars” in 2017, cementing it as the largest automaker in the world - inching just above Toyota. The company also set...Read More

Climate creates challenges as New Year rolls in

January 11, 2018 11:39 am
A new year has arrived, and with it, new engineering challenges. As 2018 rolled in, so did incredible weather events in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.   In the Northern Hemisphere, it has been extremely cold. Days after New York’s governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, revealed a clean energy policy...Read More

Our engineering degrees are now accredited by Engineers Australia

January 9, 2018 9:17 am
EIT is proud to announce that six of our Online Engineering degrees have been provisionally accredited by Engineers Australia under the Sydney and Washington accords. Online BSc degrees in Mechanical, Electrical, Civil and Automation Engineering under the Sydney accord, and Online Engineering Master degrees in Industrial Automation and Electrical Systems...Read More

How to extract the most from your studies

January 9, 2018 9:00 am
This is a message to EIT students - past, present and future: to those who want to qualify well and to those determined to benefit from their learning experiences generally. If you are studying with us presently (or have completed your studies) you will understand only too clearly what the...Read More

Power generation companies seeing job cuts due to disruption

January 4, 2018 3:25 pm
It would not have been a pleasant break at the end of 2017 for those working in the power industry. General Electric (GE) is retrenching 12,000 employees from their electrical power division; it equates to 18 percent of their workforce. The European branches of GE Power seem to be the...Read More

Make your Engineering Job Meaningful

January 2, 2018 3:30 pm
The Art of Support: EIT’s Learning Support Officers InformationCategory Education10 September 2020Written by: Quintus Potgieter The Engineering Institute of Technology (EIT) is a unique global institute, delivering online engineering short courses, diplomas, and degrees. Students around the world log into EIT’s synchronous online virtual campus to network with other... Read...Read More

Female engineers and apprentices work to finish Europe’s largest infrastructure project

December 21, 2017 3:17 pm
The people of London, England, are officially one year away from using a new underground railway. Crossrail is a new railway that links up to the renowned Elizabeth Line; since 2009 the teams involved have been working around the clock to make it happen. Engineers behind the project are calling...Read More

Speak up! The future of voice recognition in engineering

December 21, 2017 3:09 pm
By now you might have noticed that voice recognition hardware and software are growing exponentially. Companies including Google, Amazon, and Apple are developing technologies that allow humans to access the internet and control connected devices by using their voices. The introduction of products such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Home...Read More

Becoming an IoT-ready engineer

December 21, 2017 9:32 am
The fourth industrial revolution is here, making us a part of the Internet of Things (IoT), whether we like it or not. Artificial intelligence, big data, data generating sensors, robotics and automation are the kinds of innovations that are currently disrupting and indeed benefiting industry. One issue which is facing...Read More

Reinventing the wheel – one for Mars

December 21, 2017 9:20 am
Tire development has always formed a large chunk of the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) research. After all NASA has to put robust tires on the rovers they use in space. In fact the exploration of an arid, somewhat unpredictable landscape is very much dependent on good...Read More

Crowdsourcing the best in engineering design

December 19, 2017 3:57 pm
Instead of entrusting a handful of engineers to design and build, why not open it to a world of engineers, or those who are enthusiastic about all things engineering? Thanks to low-cost cloud computing, it is all possible. Collaborative engineering design was seen as far back as 2008 in the...Read More