07 April 2008

Inspiring Modern Engineers...

Nice guest column in today's Boston Globe by MIT President Susan Hockfield entitled MIT's burgeoning role in the green movement. She writes about both global challenges (and what MIT is doing about them)...
The challenges are many. How do we meet the aspirations of people around the world for a healthy, comfortable, productive life, without irreparably damaging the planet? How will we in the developed world preserve our quality of life, while shifting to renewable technologies? At the same time, how do we enable the developing world to reach a standard of living that grants access to modern comforts? How, for example, will we get electricity to the 1 billion people who don't yet have it?
She concludes with an appeal to new generations of innovators...
We need to help more young people see these problems as theirs, and to feel in these great challenges the kind of inspiration my generation experienced in the race to the moon - the kind of inspiration that made science and engineering feel exciting and important, that made us believe that the sky was no longer the limit; the kind of inspiration that will spur young people today to reach for the sun.
I very much hope this appeals to up-and-coming high school students so MIT's new admissions Dean Stu Schmill can admit them!

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