The core theme is the critical disconnect between the public's perception of engineering and its true nature as a creative, problem-solving discipline that designs the human-made world, leading to a lack of interest and understanding among students, which hinders the development of future engineers needed to tackle global challenges.
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[Music] [Applause]
according to a 2014 survey by let's talk
science Canada's teens want to solve
problems help people and make a
contribution but that's a dated question
to ask we live in a world where only 16%
of working Millennials see themselves
with the current employer ten years from
now sixteen percent that means eighty
four percent of the young workforce
doesn't actively want to be any one
thing instead they're spending the
careers hopping around to different
opportunities to solve problems help
people and make a contribution but
that's not what our industry or our
education system is set up for we are
living in the midst of a professional
revolution scrambling to prepare the
up-and-coming generation for jobs that
don't exist yet and the grand challenges
we're leaving behind for them to solve
challenges like making solar energy
economic engineering smarter medicines
and preventing nuclear terror the tasks
I've just listed are three of the 14
grand challenges for engineering in the
21st century challenges that like it or
not we as a population are going to have
to solve if we want to continue our life
on this planet in the next hundred years
let's take a look at how these
challenges map to student interests
students could solve problems by helping
make solar energy economic students
could help people by engineering smarter
medicines and students could make a
contribution by helping prevent nuclear terror
terror
much a perfect match right we can all go
home I hope you enjoyed my talk today
I'll be here all week
no the problem is not quite solved
according to research in fact these
students are facing a barrier to entry
and engineering that is almost
impossible for them to tackle alone that
being the complete lack of education in
the role that engineering plays in
society and this starts young if you
look in the literature you'll find facts
like an experiment in 2006 a classroom
of first graders were asked to identify
examples of engineered technologies the
result was that the first graders were
equally likely to choose their classroom
parrot as an example of an engineered
technology as a manufactured cup and
that's a pretty cute example but the
older the students get the scarier the
facts become and you end up with things
like high school students are more
likely to associate engineering with
machinery than problem-solving the k-12
educators have a poor understanding of
what engineers do and this one I find
the scariest the teens and adults
strongly associate engineering with
skills in mathematics and science but
much more rarely with creativity
problem-solving and a positive effect on
the world it seems no one is truly
innocent in ignoring engineering and
today we're gonna talk about why that is
but before we get into the why I'd like
to spend a little bit of time on the
what specifically what engineering is
all about if you consult a textbook for
a definition you will end up with
something like this a definition that I
haven't even bothered to memorize
because in the 30 seconds it'll take me
to read it out to you I'll have already
lost your attention so instead we're
gonna call this the brick definition and
I'm gonna read you one that I like
better that being engineering is about
the process
of designing the human-made world that
makes a lot of sense if you look at the
linguistics the word engineer evolved
from the latin word engineer which means
to design our devise the words science
evolved from the latin word ciencia
which means the study of the natural
world so in context and scientists will
ask a research question for the purpose
of furthering our understanding of the
natural world physics chemistry biology
the earth the Sun the sky but an
engineer will ask a research question
for the purpose of bending the Natural
Sciences to satisfy someone's needs and
to let that idea settle with you I'm
gonna take you through a few examples of
famous fictional engineers that have
bent the world to satisfy their needs
the first example being Wiley coyote so
he's not the best example of a good
engineer but you gotta give him points
for creativity here you can see him
bending the world to satisfy his needs
by wearing a snow maker as he skis down
the hill to catch the roadrunner so he
can travel at the same speed gotta give
him points for inventiveness next is
Tinker Bell she is a tinker fairy by
definition which is basically Disney
speak for mechanical engineer so in her
most recent reboot she's more often seen
with blueprints than in battle and is
famous for getting her friends out of a
tight jam by manipulating the objects
around her and the last example I want
to talk about is Willy Wonka from
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory now
this man would be a six sigma black belt
in real life he has got incredibly tight
production lines an amazing supply chain
and an incredible research and
development facility and food
engineering and teleportation I'd like
to see Google even try to compete so now
that you guys have a better idea of what
engineering means in the fictional world
let's take that into the real
and see what kind of engineering careers
are available to real people who take
engineering so I could sit here all day
and tell you about every single possible
job someone with an engineering degree
could pursue but then we'd probably be
here until like 9:00 p.m. and you'd kind
of hate me because you'd miss the
after-party and so instead I'm gonna
take you through a mosaic of examples of
industries people with engineering
degrees end up in the message I want you
to take away though is that an
engineering degree is like a master key
you can use it to open most doors doors
like aerospace think about how people
become astronauts biomedical engineering
everything from engineering smarter
medicines to designing robots to perform
laparoscopic surgery safely business and
entrepreneurship how do we actually
commercialize these ideas to change the
world mining and metallurgy seeking the
materials that we need to create safety
quality engineering my own profession
how do we ensure that the things we're
putting at the door are actually going
to work
social media think about how many
engineers are sitting in the basement of
Facebook finance anything to intersect
technology in the world of money law and
intellectual property what kind of
skills do you actually need to write a
patent technology and software creating
algorithms to save the world and most
interesting lean urban planning and
civil engineering how do we actually
create the infrastructure that we live
in so you might have noticed that I
haven't mentioned the two edge cases on
the side of my diagram that being TV
stars and opera singers so these are not
the most conventional engineering paths
but I like to use the examples of Bill
Nye the Science Guy and Rowan Atkinson
Mr Bean who both have engineering
degrees and later pursued a successful
lastly opera singers Isabelle Barak
Darian graduated in 1994 from U of T
engineering and has since gone on to
pursue an incredibly successful career
in the operatic arts engineering degree math
math
key so despite all of these
opportunities for students to solve
problems help people and make a
contribution why is it that students are
able to successfully associate science
careers with things like discovering new
facts analyzing data and saving lives
but not engineering careers instead
these same students associate
engineering careers with things like
repairing cars driving machines and
setting up factories why maybe because
we keep engineering buried behind
definitions like this one we engineers
have a talent for satisfying the needs
of others but we struggle with our own
very evident need to better represent
ourselves as a profession and it's not
like we haven't tried outreach before in
fact if you look at the literature
governments have been funneling hundreds
of millions of dollars on an annual
basis to try to improve the public
perceptions of stem and engineering for
the most part unsuccessfully again why
why spend all this effort the problem is
that we keep treating the symptoms of
this with our outreach as inspirational
band-aids but not the cause the cause
being the k-12 education system is
missing the e word in stem so the longer
we continue to funnel our students into
this tract this system that hasn't
changed the harder it's going to be to
get out an accurate perception of
engineering this brings me to the last
part of my talk about being what can we
do and when I say we I don't mean the
government I don't mean the ministry I
mean you and me what
all of the people in this room do to
take a part of this problem into their
own lives and to answer that question
I've prepared a call to action for each
of you as homework to parents and k-12
educators I challenge you to say the e
word parents 94% of students consider
you a valuable resource in career
decisions but only 23% of you take the
time to talk to your kids about course
selection but that number goes up to 89%
if you knew that math and science
courses were not mandatory until grade
12 and that dropping them closes doors
to careers such as engineering say the e
word K to 12 educators it is the
responsibility of a teacher to raise the
next generation of global citizens you
are arguably the second most powerful
link influence and later the only link
between a group of minds and an
experience that can change their world
research opportunities outside of your
profession share that with your students
and don't you dare let those stereotypes
slip out of your mouth never take that
responsibility lightly to other
engineers I challenge you to share your
story we are the ambassador's of the
profession and the only ones who
actually know the answer to the question
what do engineers do that is your
responsibility my friends and take every
opportunity you can to share that with
others to fellow students I challenge
you to be proactive in your own
education take every opportunity offered
by your school for a conference talk or
stem outreach event leverage the
internet research career paths that are
interesting to you and most importantly
never stop challenging the status quo if
you see a better way to solve a problem
just solve it and don't let anyone stop you
you
and lastly to everybody else I challenge
you to learn how engineering affects
your life and share it talk to the
engineers you know find out how they got
into the profession and how it's changed
their perception of the world the next
time you buy something try and think
about why you're buying it how was it
made who decided to make it that way and
why most importantly talk about it
because you never know whose future you
might inspire thank you [Applause]
you [Music]
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