Students/education

SPE Student Chapter Spotlight: Suez University

Suez Chapter SPE Business Summit participants

The collaborative series between TWA and SPE Student Chapters, “TWA Student Chapter Spotlight,” aims to feature award-winning SPE student chapters from around the world. Each article in the series will spotlight a student chapter and share some of the chapter’s main events and activities recently held.

Suez University

  • Presidential Award for Outstanding Student Chapter 2020
  • Date Established: 01 Mar 2004 

Suez University (SU) SPE student chapter was founded in 2004, and over 16 years of inspiration, has been fulfilling the technical and business needs for Suez University students and enhancing its members’ personal skills through various development programs. The section has been honored with the SPE Presidential Award for the Outstanding Student Chapter five times, in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, and recently 2020. This year, the SU chapter is one of the only two chapters from the Middle East and North Africa Region to receive the award, and the only Egyptian chapter to receive the honor.

Two of the mega achievements of the chapter in 2019–2020 are the SPE Business Summit and the ECHO magazine.

SPE Business Summit, First Edition

It is the first big non-petroleum industry conference launched since the chapter’s founding. It was a 3-day event in collaboration with SPE Future University in Egypt and was attended by more than 300 students. It became the first and largest business summit in Egypt organized by students. The event was held in October 2019 at the Future University in Egypt (image above).

The major aim of the conference was to provide guidance for students as most young people are confused about choosing their careers, face many obstacles, and have various questions about their career journey. The conference included the following activities:

  • Speeches on fields such as marketing, sales, digital marketing, information technology, freelancing, entrepreneurship, business development, human resources, photography and film making, translation, and career coaching.
  • Panel discussions
  • Mentoring Circles where a mentor sits down with mentees to discuss a certain topic of interest and answer their questions
  • Workshops and games where attendees could apply what they learned about any topic
  • Exhibitions, where companies and organizations offered their products to help students discover what careers fit them and discover the latest trends 

ECHO Magazine, 12th Edition

ECHO is SU chapter’s official oil and gas industry magazine, published annually since 2009. Over the years, the magazine has provided valuable and up to date content in order to help the upcoming industry leaders. ECHO is now one of the important publications in the Middle East.

The magazine consists of different sections:

  • Foreword from the chapter chairperson and the magazine CEO
  • Interviews with important members of the petroleum industry
  • New Technologies section
  • Young Researchers section, which includes research conducted by fresh graduates or students
  • Industry Threshold section
  • Chapter news section
Suez student chapter members holding copies of Echo Magazine, produced by the chapter
Suez student chapter members holding copies of Echo Magazine, produced by the chapter
Source: Suez student chapter

ECHO magazine is distributed in many international and sub-regional conferences such as the Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Abu Dhabi International Exhibition and Conference, International Petroleum Technology Conference, Mediterranean Offshore Conference, and Egypt Petroleum Show. The recent edition of the magazine featured interviews with many prominent oil and gas professionals such as Tom Blasingame, 2021 SPE President; Hussam Abuseif, director and general Manager for Egypt & Sudan at Baker Hughes; Alex Roberts, HSE manager for Egypt and East Mediterranean at Schlumberger; and Sherif Foda, chairman of NESR Petroleum Co.

Click here to read the magazine.