The 77th PIChE National Convention
By Jerome King
The Philippine Institute of Chemical Engineers, or more well-known to some as PIChE, hosted the 77th annual National Convention at the Boracay Ecovillage Resort and Convention Center, located at Boracay Island in Aklan. This convention, organized by the local Panay chapter, lasted four days from February 17 to 20, with each day reserved for events relevant to the chemical engineering field.
The first event was the Chemical Engineering Quiz Bowl, with chemical engineering undergraduate student representatives from all over the country joining for a battle of the brains. The university has been joining the said competition for several years now, with a very remarkable four consecutive championship titles a few years back. The De La Salle University – Manila team was lead by team captain Christian Adrian Uson, with the other team members Jerome Spencer King, Donna Angeles, and James Okusa. The contest consisted of three rounds: the easy, average and the difficult round. As the names suggest, the questions per round are arranged in increasing difficulty, coming from several areas of study in the chemical engineering curriculum. The questions range from analytical chemistry to transport phenomena to reaction engineering and to engineering economy.
Out of the fifteen participating schools, the UP Diliman team came out on top with a significant lead, earning 220 points. Succeeding the champion team was Batangas State University with 140 points and Colegio San Agustin – Bacolod with 135 points. The De La Salle University team was not able to establish a good head start, eventually culminating in a lackluster performance atypical of a quizzers team. Nonetheless, the quizzers team is eager to continue improving themselves, revising current review strategies in preparation for the competitions soon to come.
Among the other noteworthy events in the convention were the different plenary sessions organized. These eight sessions deal with several timely topics: Plasma Technology for Production of Functional Materials, Process Safety, ASEAN Cooperation on Climate Change, The Economic Impacts of ASEAN Integration, Chemical Engineering Education and Accreditation, and Sustainable Nuclear Energy, to name a few. Also, similar to many other gatherings, there was also a Fellowship Night in order to improve relationships and networking with other chemical engineers, regardless if licensed or aspirants. This fellowship night, aptly named ‘Caribbean in Boracay’ was held in Puka Beach, a more isolated yet similarly breathtaking part of the Boracay islands. The convention was closed with an event called the Bar BQ party, likely as a medium for the attendees to relieve themselves of stress and simply enjoy the night.
Despite the rather unremarkable performance in this year’s quiz bowl, there are still several opportunities for the quizzers team to improve and repair the winning streak. This is to regain the prestige of the university and to further justify that the chemical engineering department truly is a Center of Excellence in the country.