With eyes set on changing the world, recent engineering graduate Jason Sukhram (MSE 1T2) embodies the global engineer of the future. He wants to inspire engineering students after him to dream big.
Jason Sukhram’s trajectory while an engineering student at the University of Toronto changed forever after taking ILead’s Leading from the Inside Out certificate program in 2008. Assistant Director Annie Simpson, who facilitated the program, challenged him to envision all the possibilities open to him as an engineer and to develop his leadership capability. He accepted her challenge.
After that pivotal moment, Jason founded the student leadership chapter in MSE, thereby building a community of leader-engineers in his department. He has also been part of the ILead Cross-Faculty group, a community of student leaders from across the disciplines. During his undergraduate career Jason has had many enriching leadership experiences. One highlight: the opportunity to interview then Toronto Mayor David Miller at a special talk organized for engineering students in 2009. A picture of him with the former mayor hangs proudly in the ILead office to this day.
What kind of impact has all this training had?
“ILead taught me that to really think about the bigger picture, you have to ask bigger questions. As a leader-engineer, and more importantly as a citizen of the world, I feel that ILead has empowered me to think about why these problems are important and why it is important that engineers lead the change to address them. The greatest challenges our world faces will require the unique set of skills that engineers possess. Our ability to analyze and think critically about complex problems is a tremendous asset for addressing challenges that are no longer defined and solvable within one discipline. Leading change in new and unfamiliar territories requires that we consider the context of the environment and, most importantly, people.”
Having always been fascinated by the implications of globalization and the challenges to international development, Jason completed the certificate in Global Engineering to gain exposure to some of the toughest problems facing the world today. In the past year, Jason travelled to Latin America to learn about how businesses are fueling economic growth. He is currently doing research with the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at St. Michael’s Hospital to study the effectiveness of public-private partnerships in low- and middle-income countries. This year, he finishes his MBA in Hong Kong.
“I’m confident that my engineering background has given me the ability to break down important problems into the elements that define them, but my ILead background has given me the ability to lead building the processes, structures, organizations and ideas that solve them.”
What does Jason hope for his peers in engineering?
“My only hope is that my contributions inspire engineering students to continue to push the limits of the impact that engineers are capable of making in the world.”
ILead continues to inspire U of T Engineering alumni to engage with the world around them. Jason Sukhram’s story is one of many alumni who graduate from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering with a greater vision and increased confidence to pursue a life of their own making.
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