More Engineers & Scientists

While traveling and working in East Africa, I have often driven my fellow travelers crazy with my ramblings about ideas to stimulate the local economies. From online translation services that leverage the fact that many people in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda have wonderful multi-lingual skills, to "eBay" type supply chains to move produce from villages to urban areas, to tree farms for lumber industries.

I am watching, with great interest, how the mTurk model is emerging from Amazon.com, bringing together workers and work tasks across the internet.

http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

In the past week, I read a book called "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. It's one of several readings for an upcoming reunion I have with my class from the Henry Crown Fellowship Program /Aspen Institute. Friedman provides an indepth, sometimes controversial, analysis of globalization, outsourcing, commerce connections between countries and continents, and emerging models of industry.

Friedman touches on a topic that is of personal interest to me -- the decline in US college enrollment for study in Engineering and Science fields. At least, the decline among American students. International students are flocking to US colleges and filling the gap. My background is Electrical Engineering and Computer Scientist. I spend a fair bit of time these days trying to encourage youngsters to consider careers in engineering and science, and I see the phenomenon that Friedman discusses: a lot of our kids don't want to study math, science, engineering, or technology. Even the kids who have the skills and have no other concrete career plan just kick the engineering suggestion to the curb, "Nah, too much work."

I had the benefit of a wonderful program called MESA when I was in high school -- Math, Engineering, and Science Achievement. Through the MESA program and its mentors, we were introduced to careers that could leverage our enthusiasm for math and science.

There are also efforts such as the FIRST international robotics competition that give kids an opportunity to apply their technology interests. Magnet schools that focus on science and technology are another way to encourage kids with this interest.

But, the numbers are still declining.

Friedman mentions the work of Dr Shirley Ann Jackson, a renown physicist and now president of RPI. I met Dr Jackson many years ago when I was a college student at UC Berkeley and had the opportunity to spend a summer at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, NJ. Dr Jackson has a very interesting presentation on the RPI.edu website about "The Quiet Crisis -- Falling Short in Producing American Scientific and Technical Talent " -- http://www.rpi.edu/homepage/quietcrisis/

So I decided to start a discussion here on the LLR website about the topic of encouraging more youth to enroll in Engineering and Science college study. I have a few ideas and would like to brainstorm those and other ideas with everyone who shares this interest. Please invite your friends and colleagues to the discussion.

Peace,
Donna Auguste
www.leavealittleroom.org