AETDEW History 2017–2022
Our History
The founding narrative of the Academy of Engineering and Technology of the Developing World — from its origins under UNESCO ISTIC to its inaugural meeting in Kuala Lumpur and its early engagement across the South.
Founding Vision
Dato Lee Yee Cheong, AETDEW founding President, has never abandoned his conviction that the world of the 21st century would more than ever require the global engineering and technological community to inform global policy makers how to apply engineering and technological innovations to solve the global challenges of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, ill health, gender inequality as well as environmental degradation and the adverse impact of climate change. Whilst the challenges are acute and urgent, there are very hopeful signs that engineering and technological innovations, especially in digital technologies, would be equal to the task and that nations of the developing world were pooling their resources through South–South Cooperation to collectively meet the global challenges.
As one who has devoted his adult life to the establishment of academies such as the Academy of Sciences Malaysia and the ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology, and has worked to encourage the establishment of academies of sciences in developing countries under the umbrella of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), he believed that the natural avenue for the global engineering and technological community to contribute to the solution of global problems was an Academy of Engineering and Technology of the Developing World (AETDEW).
Establishment under UNESCO ISTIC
The proposal for AETDEW was put to the Governing Board of the UNESCO International Science, Technology and Innovation Centre for South–South Cooperation (ISTIC) in 2013, whilst Dato Lee Yee Cheong was chairman of the ISTIC Governing Board. The ISTIC Governing Board approved the establishment of AETDEW in 2014 after extensive consultation among its members and STI partners in South countries.
AETDEW was subsequently submitted to the Registrar of Societies (ROS) Malaysia and duly registered as a legal society. The AETDEW Inaugural General Meeting was held in Kuala Lumpur on 15 May 2017, with 143 founding AETDEW Fellows drawn from G77+China nations.
Mission and Membership Principles
The mission of AETDEW is to mobilise the engineering, technological and scientific community in the developing world to help the South achieve the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 through South–South Cooperation. Developing countries are increasingly impacted by the global digital economy and the fourth industrial revolution, in which the movers and shakers are young engineering and technology entrepreneurs. From the outset, AETDEW membership has emphasised that the young of both sexes are represented.
AETDEW membership is guided by the following founding criteria:
- multi-stakeholder composition spanning inter-government, national government, industry, academia and civil society;
- track record through science, engineering and technology in national development on the ground, rather than academic qualification, publication and citation alone;
- gender, generation and geographical balance.
Early Engagement with China and the Belt and Road
From its earliest years, AETDEW recognised China as a leader of the developing world and a champion of South–South Cooperation, with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) standing out as a far-reaching development undertaking for the South. Dato Lee Yee Cheong consistently promoted AETDEW membership in China and explored opportunities for AETDEW to contribute to institutional and human resource capacity development under the BRI, particularly in the maintenance of infrastructure in developing countries.
With an extensive network across China, expanding AETDEW membership in the country proved relatively straightforward. The establishment of an AETDEW Office in China followed a longer path: an early approach to Jinan, Shandong Province, where the Jinan Municipal Government extended a warm welcome, did not ultimately yield a project of sufficient scope to anchor an office there.
In 2019, AETDEW accepted the kind offer of AETDEW Fellow He Chenguang, Executive Chairman of the China National School Sports Robot Alliance, to host the AETDEW Office in China within his building in Beijing.
As AETDEW was little known in China during this period, securing association with the BRI proved difficult. Nevertheless, Dato Lee Yee Cheong and AETDEW Fellows engaged the International Cooperation Centre of the China Development and Reform Commission, and its Silk Road Project Office, to discuss a proposed Belt and Road Infrastructure Maintenance Training Centre in Pakistan — reflecting the view that the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), with its comprehensive multi-sector infrastructure, offered a natural setting for the training of engineers and technicians from Belt and Road countries.
From Founding to Today
The founding period set the institutional direction that continues to shape AETDEW’s work: a multi-stakeholder Fellowship drawn from across the developing world, a focus on engineering and technology in service of the Sustainable Development Goals, and a commitment to South–South Cooperation as the principal frame for collaboration.
From this foundation, AETDEW has continued to convene Fellows, institutional partners and regional networks across Asia, Africa and beyond, and to participate in dialogue on engineering and technology frameworks relevant to developing countries. The history of the Academy’s first years remains the reference point for its ongoing activities.
The narrative above is drawn from material first published on aetdew.org and reflects the Academy’s founding period from 2017 onwards.