Reimagining Engineering Education: Does Industry 4.0 Need Education 4.0?

Industry 4.0 is a commonly used term to refer to the fourth industrial revolution that is currently underway. The hallmark of this transformation is the effect of digital technologies such as Internet of Things, Robotics, Cloud Computing, Additive Manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence and others on the way we make things and the way we do business. Unlike in earlier transformations, technological change is happening at an exponential rate; as a result, artifacts, knowledge, and expertise are becoming obsolete at a very fast rate. In this climate of exponential technological change as educators we need to ask hard questions, such as: Is the current system of engineering education appropriate for the current time? Are we behind our times by many decades? What should the new model of engineering education be? Should we have an Education 4.0 movement to go hand-in-hand with Industry 4.0? What would Education 4.0 look like? Naturally all of these are difficult questions to answer. We explore these questions critically and in the context of engineering education and discuss pockets of efforts that are underway in different corners of the education landscape to address these critical questions.