World Tunnel Congress 2020: 15–21 May in Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia has emerged as an innovative tunnelling countrie in the last decade having won at least three major global tunnelling innovation awards. This year, the World Tunnel Congress (WTC) will be held in Kuala Lumpur from 15 to 21 May 2020 at the Kuala Lumpur
Convention Centre (KLCC). More than 2000 participants are expected to join in the greatest annual meeting of tunnelling and underground space engineering. Exhibition spaces are now fully booked and more than 150 companies from all over the world are ready to welcome all tunnellers. The WTC and the 46th ITA General Assembly 2020 are organised by the Institution of Engineers, Malaysia (IEM) in Kuala Lumpur.
The WTC will kick start on Friday and Saturday, 15 and 16 May 2020, with the first ITACET training course “Innovations in Tunnelling – Geotechnical Engineering and Project Management”. The opening ceremony is expected to be officiated by Malaysian prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamad on 18 May 2020. One of the highlights is the Muir Wood lecture by one of the most recognized specialists for sprayed concrete, Tom Melbye. His talk is titled “Wet-mix Sprayed Concrete: A Modern Support Method in Tunnelling and Mining “.
The exhibition at KLCC will be opened on 18 May as well, and it will showcase more than 150 companies. Technical dialogues in open sessions, presentations, working group committee meetings and countless networking opportunities will make up the bulk of the days until the closing ceremony on Wednesday late afternoon as the grand finale of the WTC 2020 event, followed by the handover of the ITA flag to the next host country, Denmark, for the WTC 2021.
Various site and technical visits will be held during and after the congress. These include the SMART Tunnel (Monday, 18 May 2020), Tunnelling Training Academy (Tuesday, 19 May 2020) and Underground works at the KVMRT Line 2 construction sites (Wednesday, 20 May 2020). All site and technical visits, as well as short excursions, will start and end at KLCC. On 21 May 2020 (Thursday), a limited number of participants will even have a chance to join a technical visit to either the ongoing East Coast Rail Link project or the completed Pahang-Selangor Raw Water Transfer Tunnel.
