In his speech, Professor Gwynn Morgan warmly congratulated the new
graduands. He said that their excellent
education equipped them to meet the ethical problems confronting experts in all
areas which are likely to be exacerbated during their working lifetime. He went
on: “The world population is presently six billion and will be nine billion by
2050. At the same time, the area
of our land mass is being drastically reduced by climate change. Many of the resulting problems will
fall on the heads of the new graduands. More people living in a smaller space
will set up a huge tension, on lawyers and engineers, to lower standards and
cut corners. For example, at present,
we see that certain tall buildings withstood the Haitan earthquake; whilst
others did not. The likelihood is
that one of them was constructed under the supervision of a honest engineer and
the other was not. The duty of
informed and independent experts is to ensure first that realistic standards
are set and then that they are properly enforced. If necessary, a professional has to be prepared to say that.
‘He who pays the piper doesn’t necesarrily the tune.’
Another duty on experts is to ensure that the public is protected
against incompetent or dishonest members of the same profession. If they do not discharge their duty to
do this, then we are reduced to the level summarised in Shaw’s remark that ‘all
professions are conspiracies against the laity’.”
The
ceremonies continue tomorrow (December 7th) and conclude on Wednesday (December
8th).
___________________
Conferring Address
by
Dr
Divakar Ramakrishnan, General Manager, Eli Lilly
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
I
am honoured to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest
universities not only in Ireland, but in the world. I don’t say this just
because I am in front of you but also because we at Eli Lilly have recruited
many of you from UCC and UCC grads today occupy significant leadership roles in
our corporate headquarters in Indianapolis USA in addition to our site here in
Kinsale.
As
I researched graduation speeches in preparing for this afternoon, I was
inspired by comments attributed to former US Vice President Al Gore. Let me
share these with you to get us started and I quote.
"In
preparing my remarks, in all seriousness I tried very hard to remember who
spoke at my commencement in 1969. I have no idea. Unless I’ve just tricked you
into remembering, my bet is that 30 years from now you won’t have any idea what
was said here, but you will remember the parties tonight. You will remember
your families being here, you will remember all the hard work that got you to
this point and you’ll remember how you felt. And I hope you feel great, because
this is a remarkable achievement that we are honoring here today.”
The
sentiment shared by Al Gore is probably true for all graduation ceremonies.
Today, apart from saluting you for your hard work and sincerity that has earned
your degree , I want to take this opportunity to share a belief, a hope and a
dream as you step out into the world outside.
Let
us start with the first one – Belief.
While
the news about the economy feels and is unbearable today for all of us here in
Ireland, I firmly believe that this will indeed pass and Ireland will emerge
stronger.
I
say this because I have personally experienced a similar situation when I was
in your shoes graduating from my undergraduate institution- Anna University in
India. At that time India had a mostly closed economy and had to go to the IMF
for a bailout the same year that I graduated. Now, when I look at where India is today, it is firmly in
the driving seat as one of the top emerging economies in the world as a result
of several factors. One of the
primary catalysts was a strong base of primarily science and engineering
graduates that could populate the growing IT industry needs globally.
As
I look at the economy here in Ireland, I believe that science, engineering and
business graduates such as yourselves will be crucial catalysts that will help
the economy recover and rebound. I
say this based off my observations of the Irish economy from the vantage of
working for a company such as Eli Lilly which represents the high-tech sector
in Ireland. This sector which is
based on science and technology is and will continue to be the anchor and
foundation for Ireland to recover as a strong knowledge and innovation based
economy. For example, chemicals
and related products made-up more than half of Ireland’s exports in 2009, which
was about €80 billion. About 70%
of these products represented the output of the biopharmaceutical industry
consisting of 25000 employees here in Ireland.
So,
while we all know that economic uncertainty is going to be a way of life in the
near future, I believe that this too will pass given the strong fundamentals of
Ireland. In this regard, I request
each of you to believe in this firmly even when the going gets tough and
explore all avenues to continue to help build the foundation of the science and
technology based economic engine here in Ireland. In the next 5-10 years that will be a pillar of the economy
to help ride us out of the financial storm of today.
Let
me now move on to my second theme – Hope!
For
me, it has been a privilege to practise science and technology as a career –
while time in college will undoubtedly rank as the best in terms of the fun
factor, I would like to make the case to you that the second best fun period in
your lives is as you enter the workforce in front line and entry level jobs
after college. I had such an
experience that I would like to share with you by way of inspiration.
During
the initial 4 months as an entry level Ph.D. engineer, while at a 2 am pizza
break from a night long trouble shooting effort with three fellow engineers, I
received breaking news that the start-up of our biotech manufacturing facility
had failed, due to a scale-up problem not anticipated previously. This was as an emergency of sorts for
my organization in case of any delay in product launch if the experimental
therapeutic got FDA approval. By
the end of the pizza break through ‘brain storming’ discussions, few of my
colleagues and I proposed design solutions to overcome the problem. On the next day, we discussed the pros
and cons of about 16 design solutions that had been proposed by the engineers
and scientists in the organization. At the end we picked one design solution
and this was then successfully implemented in the plant which eventually helped
launch of the manufacturing process without additional delay and achieve
savings in excess of $100 million.
While, my colleagues and I received accolades for this effort, it truly
rang home a few months later when a 20 year old, Maggie Lutz of Illinois,
visited our laboratories to thank the people who helped make this drug (now
called Xigris) that saved her life.
A few months before, Maggie called the health centre at the University
of Iowa complaining of flu-like symptoms. A day later, she was diagnosed with
severe sepsis and a ten percent chance of survival. Four days after receiving the experimental therapeutic
Xigris, she regained consciousness and was on her way to a complete recovery. As such, the ‘karma’ or ‘the cause that
we enabled’ makes this an accomplishment that I feel very privileged to be part
of. So, my hope for each one of
you is to be able to experience the karmic or the ‘psychic’ rewards of working
in a profession that makes an impact on people and society that is hard to
measure in pure monetary terms.
Finally,
I want to share a Dream ! - that
was shared by Dean Kim Clark at my Harvard commencement a few years ago. The words are as follows; ‘I wish that some day in a place like
this, maybe even in this place, you will sit where your friends and family and
loved ones sit today and your children will sit where you sit and you will feel
the same joy and hope that your family and loved ones feel today for you.‘
So,
in conclusion, members of the class of 2010, I congratulate you, and am
honoured to welcome you into the distinguished ranks of the alumni of the
University College Cork.
ENDS
<<Previous ItemNext Item>>
« Back to 2010 Press Releases
