News Detail

ACI y las Américas

10/2/2017

The Americas are the larger home for ACI, not only because of geography but also due to many other synergies, namely cultural and linguistic ones.

English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French are the primary languages in Canada, the United States, and Latin America. In fact, Spanish is the first language for around 420 million persons, making it the second most-spoken language after Mandarin, with English being the third most-spoken language worldwide. The United States has also become the second largest Spanish-speaking country after Mexico, with more than 52 million Spanish speakers, ahead of Spain with 48 million.

ACI already has several certification programs offered in French for Quebec, Canada, and has developed documents and training materials in Spanish. As technology continues to enable effective translation of technical documents, the Institute will be doing much more of that in the near future.

Since 2005, ACI has had an official translation for the ACI 318 Building Code and its Commentary: "Requisitos de reglamento para concreto estructural (ACI 318S) y comentario (ACI 318RS)." Actually, the first nonofficial Spanish translation of ACI 318 dates to 1971.

In addition to 318S, ACI has 19 other technical documents (documentos técnicos en español) and offers six on-demand courses (cursos bajo demanda). There are currently five different Craftsman Certification programs offered in Spanish, and by mid-2018, ACI should have all the reference materials for the Concrete Construction Special Inspector Certification program officially translated. Many statistics confirm the importance of the Americas to the future of our Institute. ACI has 10 Student Chapters in Canada and more than 46 Student Chapters in Latin America (Mexico alone has 23). The Americas represent our youngest and most diverse membership. If you would like to experience the vibrancy of our Latin American members first-hand, all you need to do is to visit the student competition area at an ACI Convention on a Sunday morning.

ACI Certification is recognized in most countries of the Americas and is offered by 26 Local Sponsoring Groups, spread between Chile in the South and Canada in the North.

Moreover, 22 out of the 25 countries in the Americas use or reference the ACI 318 Building Code. In many of these countries, the national concrete building code is literally ACI 318. It's timely that in Anaheim this month, ACI Committee 318 is hosting the 10th Structural Concrete Workshop, known as Structural Concrete in the Americas, bringing users of ACI 318 from around the world, and specifically from the Americas, to share their findings and experiences in the adoption of ACI 318 and other ACI documents.

So, whether the measure of international success for ACI is members' age, code adoption, or certification, the Americas rank the highest among all other regions in the world. Do these statistics reflect accomplished success for ACI? And if not, what can we do better?

The Americas are no different than any other region in the world where ACI can, and should, be more engaged, and where the opportunity for the Institute to have a bigger impact on concrete construction is still largely untapped. How can we get this done?

One of my presidential objectives is student participation in ACI through the expansion of ACI student competition beyond U.S. borders. With the help of ACI staff and the Chapter Activities Committee under the leadership of ACI Past President Bill Rushing, we started planting the seeds for a global students' engagement starting with the Americas, our largest community of student chapters. There are two planned initiatives currently under way.

The first will take place in Cusco, Peru, next month where the Peru Chapter – ACI will be organizing a Concrete Week, "XIII Congreso Internacional ACI Peru," with an international conference on "Evaluation, Repair and Rehabilitation of Concrete and Masonry Structures," an ACI student competition, and a meeting for the ACI Chapters in the Americas.

The Chapter Activities Committee is also planning to conduct a pilot international conference with a regional student competition in conjunction with Reunion del Concreto in Cartagena, Colombia, in September 2018. As you read this memo, I will be chapter hopping in Mexico, engaging with most of the ACI Chapters and a few of the many Student Chapters there. This will be my first interaction with the Americas as ACI President and I am confident it will be worthwhile.

The Americas inject our membership with youth, a strong interest in our publications, and great recognition of ACI as the global authority in concrete. It is only fitting for ACI to invest resources in its second home.

Khaled W. Awad