Share
Create the Future
The Eighth Wonder of the World: The Panama Canal
Season 1
•
Opened over a century ago, the Panama Canal is widely considered to be one of the greatest feats in engineering history, and a contender for the ‘eighth wonder of the world’. Not only did its construction produce the biggest earth dam in the world at the time, but it also, consequently, produced the largest artificial lake.
The Panama Canal allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean through a 48-mile-long shipping route, saving over 15,000 kilometres around the South American continent. That’s the distance from London to Queensland.
Acting as a water elevator, the canal lifts ships up and down by 26 meters through a mountain range. In 2019 alone, the Panama Canal transported several thousand vessels and a quarter of a million metric tonnes of goods.1
In this episode of Create the Future, we speak with QEPrize Judge Ilya Espino de Marotta about the history of the Panama Canal and her key role in its expansion as the appointed Executive Vice President for Engineering, the first woman in history to hold the position. We also hear about Ilya’s entry into – and career in – engineering, her thoughts on becoming a judge for the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, and her decision to wear a pink hard hat at work.
New episodes of ‘Create the Future: An Engineering Podcast’ every other Tuesday. www.qeprize.org/podcasts
More episodes
View all episodes
51. Guru & Roma reflect
24:49||Season 4, Ep. 51Two of our podcast hosts, Roma Agrawal and Guru Madhavan, sit down for a conversation about the Create The Future series.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.50. Engineering For Disability
24:36||Season 4, Ep. 50The link between disability, design and engineering tells a complex story. Host Guru Madhavan welcomes two people who have thought deeply on the subject:Dr. Ashley Shew, is associate professor of Science, Technology & Society at Virginia Tech, and specialises in disability studies and the ethics of technology.Dr. Rory A Cooper is founder and senior researcher at the University of Pittsburgh Human Engineering Research Labs, and a world-renowned expert in wheeled mobility.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.
49. The Future of Failure
32:54||Season 4, Ep. 49What happens when a bridge collapses? Or a space mission ends in tragedy? You call in forensic engineers to investigate.Host Anna Ploszajski contemplates the nature of failure with Dr Sean Brady, who uses scientific and engineering principles to study structural collapses around the world, and who has acted as an expert witness numerous times.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.
48. The Future of Space Junk
31:14||Season 4, Ep. 48Over decades of space exploration, thousands of rockets have launched, resulting in a sea of debris circling the Earth. It's estimated that there are 30,000 objects over 10 cm, 500,000 marble-sized debris, and 100 million smaller than that.Episode host Anna Ploszajski bravely goes into the unknown, in conversation with:Mike Lindsay, Chief Technology Operator at Astroscale, a start-up seeking to make space more sustainable by pioneering clean-up tech.Hugh Lewis, Professor of Astronautics at the University of Southampton.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.
47. The Future of Coffee
25:54||Season 4, Ep. 47When you have your morning shot of caffeine, do you stop to savour the engineering involved? Chemistry and mechanics are vital to the growing, roasting, grinding, brewing, and pouring ...Host Guru Madhavan - a tea drinker by trade - chairs a caffeinated conversation with:Professor Tonya Kuhl, chemical engineer and Co-Director of the UC David Coffee Center.Professor Jonathan Morris, author of Coffee. A Global History and host of the A History of Coffee podcast.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.
46. The Future of 3D Printing Assistive Devices
30:24||Season 4, Ep. 46First described in sci-fi writing in the '50s, the revolutionary dream of 3D printing became a basic reality in the 1980s. One field that is truly has transformed today is that of assistive tech and prosthetics.Host Roma Agrawal is joined by:Willy Allègre, biomedical R&D engineer at Electronic Lab of Kerpape Rehabilitation Center.Enzo Romero, inventor and researcher building prosthetics that incorporate haptic feedback.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.The 2025 Create the Trophy Competition is now open! The competition gives young people aged 14-24 the opportunity to get involved, testing their design skills using the latest in 3D-design technology.
45. The Future of Engineering Election Systems
23:36||Season 4, Ep. 45It's been a year of elections around the world. How do engineering and design choices affect the candidates running and results generated in our elections? And why do we have far more channels to rate our Uber drivers than we do our politicians?Host Guru Madhavan chairs a political summit with:Charles E. Phelps, provost emeritus of the University of Rochester and expert in health economics.Eswaran Subrahmanian, research professor at Carnegie Mellon University and expert in decision support systems.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.
44. The Future of Super Shoes
26:36||Season 4, Ep. 44Super shoes are reshaping distance running. Thanks to innovative materials and construction, this new type of footwear is engineered to help runners go quicker with less effort. So how fast can we go in the future? And is it cheating?!Ready? Set ... Go! Host Roma Agrawal races through a fascinating conversation with:Jared Ward, long distance runner, Olympian, and BYU professor.Wouter Hoogkamer, researcher at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who studies human locomotion and biomechanics.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.
43. The Future of Bamboo Buildings
22:50||Season 4, Ep. 43Stronger than steel, more robust than concrete, more flexible than wood? Is bamboo the construction industry's new miracle material. And do bamboo buildings really perform better in earthquakes?Host George Imafidon constructs a fascinating conversation with Seb Kaminski, a structural engineering specialising in bamboo and seismic design.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find episode transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.