Engineers Week is primarily an American recognition, but it's rapidly spreading across the globe. And no bad thing, too.

Generally speaking I'm adverse to facile attempts to generate gift-buying pseudo-holidays, like Doctor's Day, or Secretary's Day, and other such contrived efforts by the retail industry to sell cards and tat. But National Engineers Week actually comes from far more genuine and constructive origins, and is well worth our attention.

George's Birthday

For those outside of the US, National Engineers Week always falls within February, and spans whichever week encompasses George Washington's birthday. Why his birthday?

Well, he's considered to be America's first engineer, given that his early education was as a surveyor, and one of his first appointments being that of Culpeper County's official surveyor. So the week containing his birthday (22nd February) is used to bookend the national, becoming global, effort to recognise the world of engineering. Which, personally, I quite like!

National Engineers Week

There are now over 70 engineering, educational and cultural associations that support National Engineers Week, and an official foundation that promotes and operates their efforts.

Very little of it revolves around mutual backslapping, though. Unusual as it is these days, this rapidly became a respected institution that primarily focuses not on today's engineers, but on the future of engineering. It pours much of its efforts and resources into STEM programs, and also makes impressive strides in connecting the engineers of today with the engineers of tomorrow to encourage, support and inspire the next generation.

You can check out the official foundation's website right here, and see what's going on in your area: DiscoverE | Engineering activities for kids, resources for teachers and volunteers, and more!

Engineers Week Celebrations

So as you can see, this is a cause that's certainly worthy of element14 members' attentions, and we'd like you to join us in celebrating!

Attached to this post is a nice, high-res eCard image that we encourage you to share around the community (low-res example to the right), nay the entire internet and all its social networking channels, with anyone you feel is worthy of recognition as part of National Engineers Week. Tag them with the eCard image on Twitter, and @mention them by name right here on element14.

And feel free to make use of these great eCards as wallpaper for your computers, phones and tablets (I have "Perfect isn't good enough" on mine ). We've more to come throughout Engineers Week, so you can keep on sending out those good engineering vibes all week long.

Engineering Your Week

We've also set up a quiz you can take that'll highlight to the world just what kind of engineer you are, and which famous engineer you're most akin to. Are you a Nikola Tesla, or a Ben Heck? Find out right here, and make sure you come back to let the rest of us know who your patron engineer turned out to be in the comments section below:http://bit.ly/1R8HsYd 

We've more eCards coming, and more exciting Engineers Week content lined up, so stop back tomorrow and join in the fun!

Engineering Wins

In the spirit of innovation and excellence, the Newark arm of element14 is running a competition throughout the US for National Engineers Week. We've got 50 CodeBugs to give awat on the first 50 orders of $149 or more when using the CodeBug coupon code.

You can take part over at Newark, of course, and check out all the details of the competition on our Hot Deals page. Good luck!

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