Throughout human history, engineering has made great accomplishments to prosper the human civilization. Meanwhile, engineering still faces grand challenges in this century due to the increasing of population and the expanding of spiritual desire of people. According to the article, 14 most widely recognized grand challenges for engineering in this century fall into four main area of human concern: sustainability, health, vulnerability, and the joy of living.
The greatest concern is the future of human and the earth. The resources on the Earth are finite, but the nonrenewable resource, like petroleum is consumed by people at a constant or even increasing rate. Therefore, someday people will use them up. The challenges of sustaining civilization are urgent. To sustain human civilization ensure a bright future, engineering should accept the challenges of making solar energy economical, providing energy from nuclear fusion, developing carbon sequestration methods and managing the nitrogen cycle.
The second concern is related to personal and public health. The health threat in this century requires more effective treatment. The challenges in this area include providing access to clean water, advancing health informatics, engineering better medicines and reverse-engineering the brain.
The third concern is about vulnerability to biological disaster. To ensure the quality of life, engineering should accept the challenge of preventing terrorist attack. The more general challenge of improving life quality is to restore and improve urban infrastructure.
Last but not least, the joy of living takes a part in a high-grade life quality. There are two grand challenges in this realm including enhancing virtual reality and advancing personalized learning.
Moreover, there are barriers stop these grand challenges from being overcome, such as political obstacles, and the lack of understanding from public. Without conquer these obstacles the challenges are hardly solved.
In conclusion, the challenges engineering facing today is not unconquerable, as long as the public support is provided and the engineers from all over the world are standing together facing and solving them. Meeting all these challenges, our world will become a better place for living.
From:
National Academy of Engineering. (n.d.). Retrieved August 7, 2008,from http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221.aspx
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