{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Engineers Ireland Amplified","title":"Two Irish Engineers and Bangladesh's Deadliest Disaster","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1623,"description":"When Rana Plaza collapsed in Bangladesh killing over 1,200 garment workers in April 2013, two Irish engineers found themselves at the centre of literally redefining global worker safety standards. \nAidan Madden from Arup and Colm Quinn, now Head of Operations for the International Accord, reveal how they developed \"optimal ignorance\" methodology assessing 2,500+ factories at unprecedented scale, why poor concrete quality and overdevelopment caused the tragedy, and how training local engineers to think about existing buildings (not blank-sheet designs) represents a universal engineering challenge. \nFrom paper-based inspections to iPad workflows managing 140,000 safety findings, discover the technical rigour behind transparent remediation programmes that fundamentally changed how engineers approach ethical practice in global supply chains.\n THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT\n\nHow Rana Plaza's catastrophic collapse in April 2013 killed over 1,200 people from overdevelopment. \nWhy Arup developed \"optimal ignorance\" methodology focusing exclusively on critical life-safety elements \nHow the International Accord inspected over 2,000 Bangladesh factories identifying 140,000 individual health and safety findings, with 115,000 subsequently corrected \nWhy training local engineers to assess existing buildings represents a universal engineering problem requiring mindset shifts beyond Asia-specific contexts\nHow digital workflows transformed paper-based inspections into scalable remediation programmes \n\nGUEST DETAILS\n\nAidan Madden is a Chartered Civil/Structural Engineer with over twenty years' experience at global firm Arup, leading complex, impactful projects worldwide. Following the catastrophic Rana Plaza collapse in 2013, Aidan became a pivotal member of Arup's leadership team developing and implementing structural safety assessment methodology for the original Bangladesh Accord. \nThis monumental effort required creating standardised yet highly rigorous technical frameworks to rapidly...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/yT1HKVBRO-_0Tw5LD-gGV6EOyCLdCro-cFnWSlmkksA/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8zMjUz/ODU1M2Y5NWViNTE3/Njc1NjAzZTgxMjY0/YjZlMS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}