Mr Richard Tamba

About the speaker

Our speaker today is Mr Richard Tamba.

Richard is the Chief Executive Officer of BRT Corporation and is also in charge of Business Development for AVL.

Richard began his career with Borg Warner in Australia for almost ten years, specialising in Transmission Design for passenger cars. In early 1995, he started his own business, growing it internationally in 2010 before he sold his highly successful company, NTC Powertrain to AVL in 2011.

He is the author of over 50 patents of which 21 are currently in production in vehicles, boats and mining equipment. Richard has successfully serviced the Automotive, Marine and Mining industries with innovative technology solutions that have been proven to be successful in production.

Richard has received a number of awards, including Engineering Excellence in 1997, 2003 and 2004, and was awarded one of Australia’s Top 100 Most Influential Engineers in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Richard holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering degree from UTS and was recently awarded the UTS Alumni Award in 2014 for Excellence in Engineering and Information Technology. 

It gives me great pleasure to invite Mr Richard Tamba to deliver the occasional address.

Speech

Good afternoon. I would like to first start by acknowledging;

Presiding Chancellor – Mr Brian Wilson

Presiding Vice Chancellor Professor Attila Brungs

Presiding Dean Professor Ian Burnett, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology

Presiding Director of Marketing and Communication, Ms Jacqui Wise

Associate Professor Joanne Gray, Chair of the Academic Board

And I would also like to acknowledge the people of the Eora (E Or U) Nation upon whose ancestral lands the University now stands.

Distinguished guests, Graduates, family and friends…

I am privileged to be a past Mechanical Engineering Graduate of UTS. My graduation year was the first year that the UTS became UTS, previous to that it was called the Institute of Technology. I remember my days at UTS, in fact I still remember my Student number, it comes in handy when I want to buy books at the Co-op book store at a discount!.

Lecturers in my day were very down to earth, they reminded us to be socially responsible, to consider the environment, to keep up to date on technology and to look at the big picture. I am happy to say that this is still the case today. The key learnings I took with me when graduating from UTS were;

  • How to think outside the box
  • How to break down a problem into little pieces
  • How to find the information I needed to solve the little pieces
  • How to innovate new solutions or to work with someone else who could help me solve the problems
  • How to put it all back together to create something new and exciting

Now you are professionals, in your future you will exhibit Social and Environmental responsibility, Community leadership and service, understand the impact of Globalisation and technology on society and you will be tasked with the responsibility of protecting our environment in everything that you do.

I can honestly say that the engineers who have worked for me who have been graduates from UTS have a special understanding about how things work, how to get things done and how to work in a team to achieve the best result.

I was lucky enough to be one of the designers of the Bugatti Veyron transmission. As some of you may know, this is a high performance sports car capable of accelerating from 0-200kmh in 7 seconds, can reach speeds of 406 kmh and at 350 kmh it consumes 500L an hour of fuel. Technology – yes, environmental responsibility – hmm, but one day whilst analysing performance and factoring in the surrounding infrastructure we were alerted to an age old lesson. It went something like this. When travelling at 350kmh on the Autobahn, the Bugatti Veyron would need to stop every 7 minutes to refuel, the refuelling and payment process takes 5 mins, hence a 12 minute fuel and race cycle. Now on a fast run from Berlin to Frankfurt, the Veyron would need to stop multiple times to refuel plus it would not be able to travel at full speed for the entire distance due to speed limits. Lets introduce a Volkswagen Lupo at this point. This is a vehicle with a maximum speed of 160 kmh but a fuel useage rate of 1 litre per 100km. It can easily travel the distance from Berlin to Frankfurt on one tank of fuel. Now, lets picture a race between these two vehicles from Berlin to Frankfurt and guess what happens next. The Bugatti gets off to a racing start, leaving the Lupo in the distance, but 7 minutes later has to stop and refuel, meanwhile the Lupo continues at its merry way doing 160 kmh, eventually the fuel stops, traffic and corresponding speed limits as we approach Frankfurt result in the Lupo overtaking the Veyron. Imagine the owner of the Veyron, watching this mosquito like vehicle buzzing past him whilst he is refuelling at the fuel station… (mosquito sound).

Not very environmentally friendly is it, fortunately only a few of these vehicles ever get to travel on the road, most are in museums or are on display somewhere in the collection of an investor. On the outside they seem wasteful, but on the inside, the engineering solutions contained within these vehicles are present today in many of the vehicles we drive. Collison avoidance, occupant protection, composites, aerodynamics, robotics, software, electronics, handling, braking systems, efficiency, power management, traction control… the list goes on, maybe it was not such a waste after all. I should also point out that I was also one of the designers on the Lupo transmission, so this was a race I was always going to win!.

The lesson here is a lesson of life. When you leave here, and move into the business world will you race away spinning your wheels, leaving burning rubber and waste behind you or will you slow down and consider what’s around you. Think about how you can best help society, ask the questions about why things are the way they are, why can’t they be better, less wasteful, more user friendly more affordable, healthier, less invasive, more sustainable and above all, respect your peers and consider what is the right thing to do.

Society needs your innovative skills to take us into the next era of technology where you will find in your new exciting journey that the values of UTS will hold true;

DISCOVER

ENGAGE

EMPOWER

DELIVER

SUSTAIN

Congratulations Graduates, you should be very proud of what you have achieved already and we all look forward to being proud of what you will achieve next. I wish you the very best in your future and hope to meet you some day in business, perhaps even employ some of you and who knows, maybe one of you will be interested in employing me one day!!!

Graduates, congratulations, well done and good luck.

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.