Intertech-an engineering, technology, and education exchange across the western hemisphere

In 1989, the idea of Intertech (the Inter-American Council on Engineering and Technology Education) was born of conversations at an American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference, among a couple of US faculty and a Mexican university engineering dean. Their grand vision of Intertech settled into a first meeting in 1990, and has continued biannually throughout the decade. This paper traces the highs and lows of the dream: to foster relationships among engineering and technology educators and their institutions throughout the western hemisphere in order to improve the exchange of technology and encourage an international perspective. Challenges of Intertech´s fledgling organization, fragile resources and communication struggles are laid out to develop a case study of this pan-American initiative. The author discusses whether its first decade reveals unattainable objectives or whether it suggests the groundwork for a 21st Century success