The Engineer of 2020 Visions of Engineering in the New Century (2004) / Chapter Skim
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2 Societal, Global, and Professional Contexts of Engineering
2 Societal, Global, and Professional Contexts of Engineering
Pages 27-46
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From page 27... ...
Attention to intellectual property, project management, multilingual influences and cultural diversity, moral/religious repercussions, global/international impacts, national security, and cost-benefit constraints will continue to drive engineering practice. Population and Demographics By the year 2020 the world's population will approach 8 billion people, and much of that increase will be among groups that today are outside the developed nations1 (Central Intelligence Agency, 2001)
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From page 28... ...
During the 1990s, the combined populations of African Americans, Native Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics/Latinos grew at 13 times the rate of the non-Hispanic white population. Table 5 summarizes the demographic statistics by age, gender, and race/ethnicity.
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. SOURCE: Adapted from Central Intelligence Agency (2001)
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. tive strategies that support highly individualized volume production, cost effectiveness, and sustainability, new engineering technologies may provide an ideal avenue to make advanced medical technologies accessible to a global population base.
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31 Percent 0.8 23.7 59.7 16.5 48.9 51.1 63.7 5.7 12.8 17.0 100.0 umber 2,549,000 77,151,000 53,733,922 41,548,000 55,156,000 18,527,000 2020 N 324,926,000 194,043,000 158,856,000 166,071,000 207,145,000 thnicity Percent 3.7 0.7 25.7 61.9 12.4 49.1 50.9 69.1 12.1 12.5 100.0 Race/E ,and 2,068,883 ender umber 72,293,812 34,991,753 33,947,837 35,305,818 10,476,678 2000 N 281,421,906 174,136,341 138,053,563 143,368,343 194,552,774 G byAge, States Percent 9.0 2.8 0.7 25.6 61.9 12.6 48.7 51.3 75.6 11.7 100.0 nited U (2002) the of Bureau umber 6,968,359 1,793,773 63,604,432 31,241,831 29,216,293 22,354,059 1990 N 248,709,873 153,863,610 121,239,418 127,470,455 188,128,296 Census Population U.S.
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From page 32... ...
Countries that have in the recent past experienced youth bulge conditions include Iran, Northern Ireland, Gaza, and Sri Lanka -- all regions of recent social and political tensions exacerbated by an excess of idle youths unable to find employment. As a consequence, the world could face continuing social and political unrest and threats from terrorism and fundamentalism, creating an increased need for military services and security measures at home and abroad.
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The dramatic possibilities offered by this development are being fueled by rapidly improving educational capabilities in countries like China and India and the availability of highly skilled workers with engineering and science backgrounds in these and other countries, willing and able to work for wages well below those in the developed nations. It is estimated that today China is producing more than twice the graduates in mechanical engineering and more than three times the graduates in all fields of engineering than is the United States (Ehler, 2003)
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. However, contemporary challenges -- from biomedical devices to complex manufacturing designs to large systems of networked devices -- increasingly require a systems perspective.
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, an ability to communicate using technology, and an understanding of the complexities associated with a global market and social context. Flexibility, receptiveness to change, and mutual respect are essential as well.
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Customerization The explosion in knowledge sharing, coupled with advances in technology, will provide the ability to achieve a new era in customerization-a buyer-centric business strategy that combines mass customization with customized marketing (Wind and Rangaswamy, 2000)
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, and for many industries a made-to-order ability may become a necessity for survival in the near term. Engineers will be asked to accelerate and expand customerization as businesses compete to build and maintain a strong customer base, wherever those customers may be.
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Encouraging greater understanding of the value of engineering and the contributions it makes to society can help attract undecided students to engineering as well. Building on Past Successes and Failures As we contemplate the engineer of 2020, it is important to capture lessons learned from the rich history of engineering innovation in society.
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From page 39... ...
To retain staff members and keep them fully engaged, engineering schools may have to create new engineering degree programs to attract a new pool of students interested in a less rigorous engineering program as a "liberal" education. While this will not produce more ready-to-practice engineers (who, in this scenario, would face a bleak job market anyway)
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engineers drops, even if only temporarily while the world adjusts to a new economic order, will it be necessary for the traditional engineering schools to develop a two-tiered engineering education system? If routine engineering jobs are mostly outsourced, will we educate large numbers of lower-cost engineering "technicians" to do such jobs?
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From page 41... ...
All three may need to be done to some extent, but it is worth noting that all professions except engineering -- business, law, medicine -- presume that the bachelor's degree is not the first professional degree. They presume the first professional degree is preceded by a nonspecialist liberal arts degree, so it is also not clear that just adding two years or so to a traditional engineering B.S.
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Both initiatives stress the need for curriculum developers, cognitive scientists, educational materials developers, and teachers to work with practicing professionals as they create robust strategies for teaching and learning in the various professional disciplines.
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And they and the engineering education infrastructure will likely need to contend with changes in the nature and scale of the engineering workforce. The nation may be forced to make some hard decisions about the national security and international competitiveness implications of excluding immigrant engineers and/or of exporting large numbers of engineering jobs offshore.
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Available online at: http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/ppp. Central Intelligence Agency.
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From page 45... ...
eBusiness Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, University Park. Available online at: http://www.smeal.psu.edu/ebrc/publications/res_papers/ 1999_06.pdf.
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