Synergistic Emerging Technologies And Exponential Change: Implications For Engineering Education

Change is coming, it is coming faster than nearly everyone expects, and it cannot be stopped. The only sensible response is to enthusiastically embrace change and use it to advantage to improve overall organizational effectiveness. The synergistic blending of Nanoscale Engineering, Genetic Engineering and Robotics/Artificial Intelligence has the potential to change society in revolutionary ways. Correspondingly, these technologies will also profoundly change the nature of engineering education with the advent of computers that exceed the processing capability of the human brain, high quality virtual reality, and molecular manufacturing, among other possibilities. Equally unsettling for many is the notion that technological progress is advancing exponentially and, therefore, the pace of change is increasing. Education is the best possible solution for successfully responding to accelerating technological change and engineering education programs are particularly well suited to inspire this response. Engineering programs must set the example for students and society by becoming “learning organizations” and by embracing a process of continual transformation to successfully cope with accelerating technological change.