Grand challenges for Engineering announced by NAE
by
Charlie Bess
National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced the Grand Challenges for Engineering, at a news conference. It is a list of this century's greatest challenges/opportunities. The criteria for selection was to advance how we live "by improving sustainability, health, and joy of living, and reducing vulnerability."
The challenges are:
- Make solar energy economical
- Provide energy from fusion
- Develop carbon sequestration methods
- Manage the nitrogen cycle
- Provide access to clean water
- Restore and improve urban infrastructure
- Advance health informatics
- Engineer better medicines
- Reverse-engineer the brain
- Prevent nuclear terror
- Secure cyberspace
- Enhance virtual reality
- Advance personalized learning
- Engineer the tools of scientific discovery
Each challenge has its own page with background materials, references and comment pages.
Currently, the NAE is offering the public an opportunity to vote on which challenge they think is most important and to provide comments at the project Web site, http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/, which features a five-minute video overview of the project and committee-member interview excerpts.
