Our co-Founder and co-Director Andrés González-García, Ph.D. has been awarded with the “Ingeniería con Propósito” award, granted by Fundación Ingenieros de ICAI for the first time this year.

This award seeks to recognize graduates of the ICAI School of Engineering who have dedicated themselves professionally or who have made relevant contributions through volunteering to the solution of social or environmental problems of vulnerable groups.

Read more about this award here.

Hereunder, a message from Andrés:

“Deeply happy and grateful!

I am honored to have received the “Engineering with Purpose” award from the ICAI Engineers for Development Foundation for my professional contribution to improving the living conditions of the most vulnerable people.

This recognition from the Foundation and from my colleagues at the National Association/College of ICAI Engineers has come as a complete surprise. I would like to thank my colleagues at the ICAI School of Engineering and the IIT, Fernando De Cuadra García, Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga, Rafael Palacios and Pablo Dueñas Martinez for nominating me (without my knowledge) for this award. It is a tremendous joy and a huge motivation to continue developing projects that seek a positive impact on sustainable development, universal access to energy and energy transition.

Engineering has a formidable capacity to transform the world, and this award is a reminder of the importance of our work and expertise in ensuring that no one is left behind in an increasingly technological society and economy. I do not remember a professional moment when volunteering and the exercise of the profession with purpose, whether as a student of ICAI in the foundation of Engineering Without Borders (today ONGAWA), later in Solidarte and the National President of the Fair Trade Federation and Fairtrade Ibérica, the Solidarity Aula, Energy Without Borders – Esf, the Table for Universal Access to Energy, and now from Waya Energy, the MIT Energy Initiative’s Universal Energy Access Laboratory and the Institute for Research in Technology of the Universidad Pontificia Comillas has not been a source of personal growth and transformative impact from the engineering profession.

I am deeply grateful to the ICAI Foundation and Association of Engineers for their support and for making social responsibility in our profession one of the pillars of their transformative action for a more just and humane world. As the founder S. Ignacio used to say, in all things to love and serve, thank God.

This honor is undoubtedly a choral achievement, first thanks to the support of Cristina, my children and my family, to all my colleagues at Waya Energy and the Universal Energy Access Lab (MIT & IIT-Comillas), to all the organisations where I have been able to advance paths in cooperation for human and sustainable development. Thank you all for always being there!

The road goes on and on.”