FIGURE 1
Engineering Achievements & Contributions in
The 20th Century: Some Random Examples
  • Transportation - Vehicles and Infrastructures
  • Space Exploration and Satellite Technology
  • Food and Pharmaceuticals
  • Biomedical Technology and Prosthetics
  • Materials, Synthetics, and Petrochemicals
  • Energy and Power Systems
  • Micro/Opto-Electronics and Entertainment
  • Computation and Telecommunication
What Will We Do For An Encore In The 21st Century?
More of the Same?







FIGURE 2
Technology Strategic Planning
  • a holistic approach enabling corporate planners to "see" their own technologies and those of competitors as if on a chessboard
  • Enables planners to see how technologies can be both a threat and a resource simultaneously and to maneuver them offensively and defensively
  • Acquisition - Technology alliances (transfer mechanisms) and counter-alliances (blockage mechanisms)
  • Utilization - "Frontal attacks", "encirclement", etc.







FIGURE 3
Are We Producing Bricklayers or Cathedral Builders?
  • Who will be devising crucial future strategies for the industry?
  • Who will be making hire-and-fire decisions for our corporations (Impacting engineers and the image of engineering)?
  • Who will be leading the society and country in this technological age?
                              We Need Both!







FIGURE 4
Our Formidable Foreign Competitors
(Including Fast-Rising Countries)
         They
  • Recognize the important role of engineering and technology in economic development
  • Have high regard for the capability, dedication, and contributions of engineers in various arenas
  • Have placed engineers in prestigious or visible positions throughout the society
  • Encourage their brightest youngsters, by word, deed, and/or example, to study to be engineers







FIGURE 5


Education vis-a-vis Training

Largely

To think and create *

To do right things

To lead

Long-term impact

Broadly-based

 Largely

To do **

To do things right

To follow

Immediate result

Narrowly focussed

*     Plan, integrate, discover, design, etc; to develop conceptual skills for thinking beyond the prevailing paradigm.
**     Implement, build, process, etc.; to develop contextual skills to enhance immediate performance.
Both Are Needed!






FIGURE 6
Leadership Qualities
  • Caring more than others think is wise;
  • Risking more than others think is safe;
  • Dreaming more than others think is practical; and
  • Expecting more than others think is possible.






FIGURE 7
A Leader....

  Envisions

  Evangelizes

  Exemplifies

  Encourages

  Empowers

  Enables

  Energizes

  Evaluates








FIGURE 8
What Else Can Engineers Do? Plenty!
(Examples of "Unconventional" Careers)

  • Business and management

  • Finance, investment, and accounting

  • Economics and marketing

  • Education, journalism, and law

  • Public and military service

  • Medicine and health care delivery

  • Architecture, art, and music

  • Etc.