IGS Expertise Shared At South America Chapter Events

Geosynthetics in the IGS's Pan-American region were further championed with two recent IGS Ambassadors Program visits.

Expert practitioners from the IGS spoke at events hosted by IGS Guatemala – the Society's newest Chapter formally ratified in July, this year – and IGS Colombia.

The IGS Ambassadors Program is a means of outreach and mentorship to Chapters, helping to raise awareness, providing a link between the IGS and scientific community, and building relationships between local and global geosynthetics groups.

For IGS Guatemala, Rosemberg Reyes spoke on 'Engineering with geosynthetics in geotechnical solutions', as part of the 3^rd National Congress of Earthquake and Geotechnical Engineering in Guatemala City on October 14-15.

IGS Guatemala Vice-President Alberto José Pérez Zarco, said: "This Congress is held every two years and is the most important congress on these subjects in the country, so we thought the best way to present our new IGS Chapter to the public was to have a high level representative attend. What better than to use the IGS Ambassador Program.

"The Ambassadors Program allowed us to present geosynthetics in a professional and correct manner, with first class exhibitors, and this gave credibility to our Chapter. The coordination and support of the IGS Pan-American Committee was invaluable to achieve the success we had at our event."

Around 140 attendees participated at the Congress with delegates from Guatemala, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Mexico, Honduras, Panama, Colombia and Taiwan.

Then in November, IGS Colombia hosted IGS Brazil Past President Victor Pimentel, who gave a lecture on 'Geosynthetics and sustainability: a clear generation of value'.

Part of the XVIII Geotechnical Congress in Cali, Colombia, some 300 people attended the overall event between November 5-8, where geosynthetics was given a key focus among the usual geosynthetics topics, including during several short courses which explored the introduction of geosynthetics in Colombia.

Francisco Pizarro, chair of the IGS Pan-American Regional Activities Committee (RAC), said: "We were proud to bring Victor to Colombia and he embraced such a relevant topic. It came in a perfect moment since IGS Colombia is growing strong and many more events are coming, among them an IGS Educate the Educators event in Bogota in June 2025, and of course the highly-anticipated GeoAmericas 2028 in Cartagena.

"IGS Guatemala is the Society's newest Chapter and the RAC couldn't be prouder of its efforts to facilitate new connections through the Ambassador Program with the support of Dr. Reyes."

Learn more about the IGS Ambassadors Program and how to request a visit by clicking here.

Further details about the IGS Pan-American RAC can be found here.