Dr. Steve Mackay is the founder of the Engineering Institute of Technology. He firmly believes in Nelson Mandela’s mantra that, “Education is the most powerful weapon which we can use to change the world.” His leadership has inspired EIT’s unique and distinctive approach to engineering education.

Since 2008 three core objectives define the essence of the institute:

Collaborating comprehensively with industry to ensure graduates are job-ready.
Employing platforms of learning to facilitate student accessibility and engagement.
Keeping the business of education student-centric.

Dr. Mackay has enjoyed a varied career in engineering, having worked in automation, data acquisition, instrumentation, data communications, and process control throughout Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America over the past 35 years. He has successfully pioneered the application of new technologies in Australia and overseas, installing industrial data communication systems and implementing live online education, (including remote laboratories), for engineering students worldwide. Dr. Mackay has been involved in a range of industries, including power stations, mining, mineral processing, oil/gas/petrochemical plants, and platforms. He has presented courses on industrial data communications, data acquisition, instrumentation, and process control to over 30,000 engineers and technicians worldwide for clients such as NASA, Rolls Royce, and BP. He has also co-authored and edited 25 engineering books that have been published across the world. Dr. Mackay is a Fellow of Engineers Australia with a license to practice as a Chemical, Mechanical, and Electrical Chartered Professional Engineer. As Dean of the Engineering Institute of Technology, Dr. Mackay leads the institute in providing microcredentials and engineering qualifications to over 2000 students per year from 140 countries. He has an unswerving focus on student outcomes and on excellence in education.

Simply engineering a copy of a product or service is not enough

August 31, 2011 8:17 am
Last week's announcement by HP that it would stop making tablet computers – not particularly long after it had launched them - was a shock for many of us. In their early days, HP were always a company strongly focussed on engineering professionals. In the past year, mainly in response to the overwhelming...Read More

Handling conflict in engineering teams

August 31, 2011 8:16 am
Conflict is a key part of our lives as engineering professionals. Especially these days with so much change occurring. Conflict is a verbal (or indeed non-verbal) expressed disagreement between individuals or groups. It may occur, for example, between an engineering supervisor and employee, or manager and supervisor. And, as you...Read More

Engineering Professionals Collaborate Virtually

August 31, 2011 8:15 am
The Art of Support: EIT’s Learning Support Officers InformationCategory Education10 September 2020Written by: Quintus Potgieter The Engineering Institute of Technology (EIT) is a unique global institute, delivering online engineering short courses, diplomas, and degrees. Students around the world log into EIT’s synchronous online virtual campus to network with other... Read...Read More

Power over Ethernet touches all of us engineering professionals

August 31, 2011 8:00 am
There is a technology that touches all of us – no matter what area of engineering you are active in and that is of course – good old Ethernet. And one of the biggest and dare, I say useful changes has been Power over Ethernet (PoE) and this note is...Read More

Absolute Basic Skills for Engineering Professionals we should all have gained when twenty years old

August 2, 2011 7:59 am
Dear Colleagues One of the best investments I ever made in my basic skills was learning to touch type thirty years ago (yes - on a typewriter). Admittedly, being the only (geeky) boy in the class, I was somewhat intimidated by the dozen girls in the class; but a mere...Read More

The Myth of the Airgap in Industrial Automation Se-curity

July 27, 2011 7:56 am
Dear Colleagues I used to jo-ke (mistakenly) that the only secure way of protection of your control system from cyber att-acks is having an ‘airgap’ (i.e. your industrial control system has no connection to the internet or the ‘outside world’). As we all know, one of the enduring myths of...Read More

Engineering the Cloud

July 25, 2011 7:58 am
As far as I am concerned, the 'Cloud' everyone is talking about these days, is potentially some used car operator next door to your premises offering you rental of his computer system so that he can make a quick buck. Perhaps an unfair accusation. No matter whether you are a...Read More

Engineering the next generation computer

July 18, 2011 7:57 am
Dear colleagues Are we reaching the end of the road with the relentless continuous drop in computer prices and surge in performance? There are some interesting changes lurching into view. Intel has been the forerunner in CPU chip design (with 80% of the market for PC CPUs) but the ending...Read More

New isn’t always better in engineering a product

June 28, 2011 7:55 am
The Art of Support: EIT’s Learning Support Officers InformationCategory Education10 September 2020Written by: Quintus Potgieter The Engineering Institute of Technology (EIT) is a unique global institute, delivering online engineering short courses, diplomas, and degrees. Students around the world log into EIT’s synchronous online virtual campus to network with other... Read...Read More

Power Engineering to jumpstart careers

June 21, 2011 7:54 am
Dear Colleagues Even as long ago as the 1970's, our engineering school saw massively declining enrolments in power systems engineering. Everyone wanted to undertake the high tech type electronics courses. Students were unexcited by power engineering as they perceived it to be old, inflexible and industrial ‘smoke stack’ type engineering....Read More