Over 57,000 young people tuned in to the biggest ever Big Assembly late last year.

The UK faces a shortfall of up to 59,000 engineers in core roles every year.  The Big Assembly was part of the seventh Tomorrow’s Engineers Week which aims to inspire a generation of future engineers. 

Streamed to more than 500 schools the assembly showcased #EngineersOnAMission to help people’s health and wellbeing.  It featured a series of films that showed how engineers help find cures for cancer, keep people safe at sea and help dementia patients.

Dr Rebecca Shipley a healthcare engineer who was chosen for her work at University College London in helping to beat cancer, develops tools to visualise the structure of cancerous tissues in the body and better predict where drugs will be delivered to within the tumours.

Explaining why she chose a career in engineering, Professor Shipley said:

From when I chose my A-levels, I focused on maths, physical sciences and engineering, as these were the subjects I loved.

Once I started my research career, I wanted to be able to have an impact on people’s health and quality of life.

Fortunately, there is huge opportunity for this, as we need researchers who can develop tools from maths and engineering to develop digital and medical technologies in healthcare.

The #EngineerOnAMission films have been viewed over 200,000 times and the Big Assembly is still available to download here.

Tomorrow’s Engineers Week is led by EngineeringUK, a not-for-profit organisation which works with the engineering community – employers and professional institutions – to inspire tomorrow’s engineers.

Image credit: Tomorrow’s Engineers Week