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.

You and the engineering experience curve

November 24, 2010 12:36 pm
Dear Colleagues In essence, the more experience a firm has in producing a particular product or service, the lower its costs are. Fairly obvious one would think, but something we often don’t consider when planning a large project or job (especially one which has a degree of repetition in it)....Read More

What you can gain from a career in Forensic engineering

November 17, 2010 12:35 pm
Dear Colleagues The splatter of body parts and guts in the nightly feast of crime and police shows has made forensics a household name. And the emphasis today has shifted to high tech forensic methods which make the scientist and engineer a key individual in solving some dastardly crime. A...Read More

Printing in 3-d – an incredible break for engineering professionals

November 8, 2010 12:34 pm
Dear Colleagues Imagine scanning a broken part that is no longer available (for your vintage car) into your computer and then printing out (in 3-dimensions) a replacement in plastic in 60 minutes. A few further adjustments and then you print out the finished version (which you may also give to...Read More

Engineering Lithium batteries and a chapter on energy management

November 2, 2010 12:33 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

Engineering Leadership and two chapters

October 28, 2010 12:33 pm
Dear Colleagues ‘You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not? (George Bernard Shaw). I believe that one of the great signs of leadership is in questioning what you do, in identifying new ways of doing things and taking your...Read More

Engineering Noise downwards; a quick refrain on decibels as well as a download on audio engineering

October 19, 2010 12:32 pm
Dear Colleagues Please forgive me dear (engineering) reader (and perhaps, gardener) but surely there is nothing more irritating than the strident noise of lawnmowers or mulching machines with their staccato crackling sound on a quiet Saturday afternoon ? In my book, silence is often more desirable than privacy. This short...Read More

Cheap Engineering Experimentation and Incredible Breakthroughs

October 15, 2010 12:30 pm
Dear Colleagues ‘A sheet of graphene (a form of carbon that appears as hexagonal shapes arranged in a flat layer) the same thickness as plastic refrigerator wrap, stretched over a coffee cup, can support the weight of a truck bearing down on a pencil point’ (New York Times). Besides being...Read More

Engineering Better Security with Biometrics

October 5, 2010 12:30 pm
Dear Colleagues Recently a motorist had his finger chopped off so that thieves could steal his expensive car. He was using biometric based fingerprint identification for the car. In applying biosecurity technologies, my concern and experience has been the slowness of the technology in identifying an individual. Not so much...Read More

Engineering more safety into pipelines and a chapter on pipeline engineering

September 29, 2010 12:28 pm
Dear Colleagues ‘The explosive nature of a pipeline,is not far away from the force of a military explosion.’  So remarked Jim Hall, former (American) NTSB chairman. As recently as 2008, a natural gas explosion in Sacramento, killed one and injured two others. And in San Bruno, California on the Sept...Read More

Engineering tremendous advances in flowmeters

September 20, 2010 12:27 pm
Dear Colleagues, It is all quite frustrating - the more you learn about a particular technology, the less you feel you know – esp. in the context of measuring flow rates. The story of engineering, I guess. Flowmeters touch us in every engineering discipline; hence it is definitely worthwhile pondering...Read More

Engineering Power from Hot Rocks and a chapter from Gas Turbines

September 14, 2010 12:25 pm
Dear Colleagues Imagine deriving the entire power for a country from hot rocks a few kms below the earth’s surface. Read on about a clever (but very difficult) technology to extract energy from a virtually inexhaustible pollution free source, which as engineering professionals you need to be aware of, as...Read More

W(h)att's up, 'o Engineering professional, when you save energy?

September 1, 2010 12:25 pm
Dear Colleagues Most people tend to underestimate or misunderstand energy savings – according to the latest research that is. We tend to focus on insignificant savings such as upgrading light bulbs and twiddling thermostats. Most people grasp the broad and basic issues about energy savings; but they are decidedly unsure...Read More

Engineering statistics and lies and a chapter on wind energy

September 1, 2010 12:24 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

Engineering yourself in the business world

August 18, 2010 12:22 pm
Dear Colleagues In contrast to the well defined structures of engineering, it never ceases to fascinate me how the topsy-turvy way business actually works. In many cases, defying the laws of logic (and as the old saying goes: rewarding the guilty and punishing the innocent). There are six important issues...Read More

An engineering professional working and collaborating remotely Plus whitepaper on the tools

August 11, 2010 12:21 pm
Dear Colleague Although I can hear a few of you muttering... 'obviously a jack of all trades and master of none'; one of  my passions is the study of engineering professionals working and collaborating remotely especially in remote configuration and testing of industrial automation systems. The rapid growth in broadband,...Read More

The great engineering innovation delusion and a chapter on pumps

August 4, 2010 12:21 pm
Dear Colleagues As you know, with the recent release of the various Apple iPhones and iPads; innovation tuned into the market is highly prized and rewarded. Rupert Murdoch, the news media magnate, predicts that tens of millions of iPads will be sold over the next few years. He remarked about...Read More

Two engineering strokes of genius

July 28, 2010 12:20 pm
Dear Colleagues Remember those noisy motorbikes with plumes of smoke pouring behind them as they tore down the street? I grew up with them and aspired for one, although in some respects they were death-traps for teenagers. You don’t see many two-stroke engines on the road today; they have survived...Read More

How to ask for a salary increase

July 22, 2010 12:18 pm
Dear Colleagues One thing that we as engineering professionals tend to shy away from, is asking for a raise or an increase in fees for services we deliver to clients. Engineers and technicians tend to enjoy and focus on the engineering and technical issues and generally get short changed on...Read More

Learning by doing

July 14, 2010 12:18 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

Reverse Engineering Innovation

July 7, 2010 12:16 pm
Dear Colleagues Many of us tend to regard the developing (poorer) world as a great market for our so-called innovative products from the west. Let’s face it - with the inevitable doomsday talk of a double dip recession, there is a heightened twitchiness around the world at present, so any...Read More

Swiss re-engineering of watchmaking is an inspiration to us all

June 30, 2010 12:15 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

Your complimentary chapter on Good Installation Practice for PLC’s and transferring power wirelessly

June 17, 2010 12:13 pm
Dear Colleagues At the end of this newsletter, you can get the details on downloading your 20 page chapter on good installation practice for PLC’s. Why should you read this short note below about transferring power wirelessly? Well; like it or not, it is definitely a method that will be...Read More

As an engineering professional you have to say NO

June 9, 2010 12:12 pm
Dear Colleagues When designing or constructing a product, we specify the requirements (and design features) in copious detail. But one set of items we tend to leave out are the unwanted requirements (or the do not do’s). This comment probably sounds odd (demented ?). However, we tend to focus on...Read More

Engineering at extreme depths

June 3, 2010 12:11 pm
Dear Colleagues We’ve all been watching the BP Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the explosion and collapse of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. And we all have a response. There are those who are horrified about the environmental catastrophe, others who wonder about the technology and...Read More

Complimentary Overview of HV switching & Only the paranoid survive in engineering business

May 24, 2010 12:14 pm
Dear colleagues Andy Grove, the innovative and hard driving ex-CEO of the business behemoth Intel, and a famous chemical engineer, made the remark ‘Only the paranoid survive in business’ many years ago when referring to how he grew Intel so vigorously (and profitably) over many decades; despite dealing with enormous...Read More

Troubleshooting industrial data communications and working with fiber

May 19, 2010 12:10 pm
We Need Your Help: We are looking for a range of solutions for troubleshooting industrial data communications and networking systems and some critical safety hints for working with fiber. A slight wrinkle to my normal newsletter: We are in the throes of constructing a list of troubleshooting tips and tricks...Read More

The Engineering Travelling Circus on Ethernet, Smart Instruments, VSDs, Wireless & SILs

May 14, 2010 12:09 pm
Dear Colleagues, It seems, on reflection, that over time I have had the dubious honour of travelling to ‘out of the way’ places. Two weeks ago, I participated in an Engineering Roadshow where we presented short lectures to engineering professionals in various out-of-city locations. A range of exhibitors promoted their...Read More

Solving Engineering Problems are akin to the Phoenix Rising

May 6, 2010 12:08 pm
Dear Colleagues As we all know there is a burgeoning environmental catastrophe occurring in the Gulf of Mexico. BP’s CEO has announced that a massive containment dome (also known as a cofferdam) will be dropped through 5000 feet of water to cover the oil leak and funnel the oil to...Read More

Your complimentary Arc Flash Chapter download

May 2, 2010 12:10 pm
Dear Colleagues The main reason, for writing this newsletter is to inform and educate (both you and me, I might add) and hopefully to ensure that you get value from our newsletters (and naturally open them !). The one topic, which is still very “hot” is of course Arc Flash...Read More

Eight ways for Engineering Professionals to Build their Personal Career Value

April 15, 2010 12:07 pm
Dear Colleagues At the end of this note, there are three complimentary chapters for you to download. They are from our forthcoming bridging course on Engineering Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry. We all know that no one is indispensable – companies and people come and go. Even the owner or ‘boss’...Read More