0:07 [Music] [Applause]
0:23 according to a 2014 survey by let's talk
0:27 science Canada's teens want to solve
0:31 problems help people and make a
0:34 contribution but that's a dated question
0:40 to ask we live in a world where only 16%
0:42 of working Millennials see themselves
0:44 with the current employer ten years from
0:48 now sixteen percent that means eighty
0:50 four percent of the young workforce
0:53 doesn't actively want to be any one
0:55 thing instead they're spending the
0:57 careers hopping around to different
0:59 opportunities to solve problems help
1:03 people and make a contribution but
1:05 that's not what our industry or our
1:09 education system is set up for we are
1:11 living in the midst of a professional
1:14 revolution scrambling to prepare the
1:16 up-and-coming generation for jobs that
1:19 don't exist yet and the grand challenges
1:22 we're leaving behind for them to solve
1:25 challenges like making solar energy
1:29 economic engineering smarter medicines
1:34 and preventing nuclear terror the tasks
1:36 I've just listed are three of the 14
1:38 grand challenges for engineering in the
1:42 21st century challenges that like it or
1:44 not we as a population are going to have
1:46 to solve if we want to continue our life
1:49 on this planet in the next hundred years
1:51 let's take a look at how these
1:55 challenges map to student interests
1:58 students could solve problems by helping
2:01 make solar energy economic students
2:04 could help people by engineering smarter
2:08 medicines and students could make a
2:10 contribution by helping prevent nuclear terror
2:13 terror
2:16 much a perfect match right we can all go
2:19 home I hope you enjoyed my talk today
2:20 I'll be here all week
2:25 no the problem is not quite solved
2:28 according to research in fact these
2:30 students are facing a barrier to entry
2:32 and engineering that is almost
2:36 impossible for them to tackle alone that
2:40 being the complete lack of education in
2:43 the role that engineering plays in
2:46 society and this starts young if you
2:48 look in the literature you'll find facts
2:51 like an experiment in 2006 a classroom
2:53 of first graders were asked to identify
2:56 examples of engineered technologies the
2:59 result was that the first graders were
3:01 equally likely to choose their classroom
3:03 parrot as an example of an engineered
3:08 technology as a manufactured cup and
3:10 that's a pretty cute example but the
3:12 older the students get the scarier the
3:14 facts become and you end up with things
3:16 like high school students are more
3:18 likely to associate engineering with
3:22 machinery than problem-solving the k-12
3:25 educators have a poor understanding of
3:28 what engineers do and this one I find
3:31 the scariest the teens and adults
3:33 strongly associate engineering with
3:36 skills in mathematics and science but
3:39 much more rarely with creativity
3:43 problem-solving and a positive effect on
3:47 the world it seems no one is truly
3:50 innocent in ignoring engineering and
3:53 today we're gonna talk about why that is
3:55 but before we get into the why I'd like
3:56 to spend a little bit of time on the
3:59 what specifically what engineering is
4:04 all about if you consult a textbook for
4:05 a definition you will end up with
4:07 something like this a definition that I
4:08 haven't even bothered to memorize
4:10 because in the 30 seconds it'll take me
4:12 to read it out to you I'll have already
4:14 lost your attention so instead we're
4:17 gonna call this the brick definition and
4:19 I'm gonna read you one that I like
4:24 better that being engineering is about
4:25 the process
4:31 of designing the human-made world that
4:32 makes a lot of sense if you look at the
4:37 linguistics the word engineer evolved
4:39 from the latin word engineer which means
4:43 to design our devise the words science
4:46 evolved from the latin word ciencia
4:48 which means the study of the natural
4:54 world so in context and scientists will
4:56 ask a research question for the purpose
4:58 of furthering our understanding of the
5:02 natural world physics chemistry biology
5:06 the earth the Sun the sky but an
5:08 engineer will ask a research question
5:11 for the purpose of bending the Natural
5:14 Sciences to satisfy someone's needs and
5:17 to let that idea settle with you I'm
5:18 gonna take you through a few examples of
5:20 famous fictional engineers that have
5:22 bent the world to satisfy their needs
5:28 the first example being Wiley coyote so
5:30 he's not the best example of a good
5:33 engineer but you gotta give him points
5:35 for creativity here you can see him
5:37 bending the world to satisfy his needs
5:40 by wearing a snow maker as he skis down
5:41 the hill to catch the roadrunner so he
5:44 can travel at the same speed gotta give
5:47 him points for inventiveness next is
5:51 Tinker Bell she is a tinker fairy by
5:53 definition which is basically Disney
5:58 speak for mechanical engineer so in her
6:00 most recent reboot she's more often seen
6:02 with blueprints than in battle and is
6:04 famous for getting her friends out of a
6:06 tight jam by manipulating the objects
6:09 around her and the last example I want
6:11 to talk about is Willy Wonka from
6:13 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory now
6:15 this man would be a six sigma black belt
6:18 in real life he has got incredibly tight
6:21 production lines an amazing supply chain
6:23 and an incredible research and
6:25 development facility and food
6:29 engineering and teleportation I'd like
6:34 to see Google even try to compete so now
6:35 that you guys have a better idea of what
6:37 engineering means in the fictional world
6:39 let's take that into the real
6:41 and see what kind of engineering careers
6:43 are available to real people who take
6:47 engineering so I could sit here all day
6:49 and tell you about every single possible
6:51 job someone with an engineering degree
6:53 could pursue but then we'd probably be
6:55 here until like 9:00 p.m. and you'd kind
6:56 of hate me because you'd miss the
6:58 after-party and so instead I'm gonna
7:00 take you through a mosaic of examples of
7:02 industries people with engineering
7:05 degrees end up in the message I want you
7:06 to take away though is that an
7:09 engineering degree is like a master key
7:15 you can use it to open most doors doors
7:18 like aerospace think about how people
7:22 become astronauts biomedical engineering
7:24 everything from engineering smarter
7:26 medicines to designing robots to perform
7:30 laparoscopic surgery safely business and
7:31 entrepreneurship how do we actually
7:34 commercialize these ideas to change the
7:38 world mining and metallurgy seeking the
7:41 materials that we need to create safety
7:44 quality engineering my own profession
7:45 how do we ensure that the things we're
7:47 putting at the door are actually going
7:48 to work
7:50 social media think about how many
7:52 engineers are sitting in the basement of
7:55 Facebook finance anything to intersect
7:58 technology in the world of money law and
7:59 intellectual property what kind of
8:02 skills do you actually need to write a
8:05 patent technology and software creating
8:07 algorithms to save the world and most
8:09 interesting lean urban planning and
8:10 civil engineering how do we actually
8:13 create the infrastructure that we live
8:16 in so you might have noticed that I
8:17 haven't mentioned the two edge cases on
8:20 the side of my diagram that being TV
8:23 stars and opera singers so these are not
8:24 the most conventional engineering paths
8:27 but I like to use the examples of Bill
8:29 Nye the Science Guy and Rowan Atkinson
8:31 Mr Bean who both have engineering
8:33 degrees and later pursued a successful
8:39 lastly opera singers Isabelle Barak
8:42 Darian graduated in 1994 from U of T
8:44 engineering and has since gone on to
8:46 pursue an incredibly successful career
8:51 in the operatic arts engineering degree math
8:52 math
8:56 key so despite all of these
8:58 opportunities for students to solve
9:02 problems help people and make a
9:05 contribution why is it that students are
9:07 able to successfully associate science
9:09 careers with things like discovering new
9:13 facts analyzing data and saving lives
9:19 but not engineering careers instead
9:21 these same students associate
9:22 engineering careers with things like
9:25 repairing cars driving machines and
9:33 setting up factories why maybe because
9:35 we keep engineering buried behind
9:40 definitions like this one we engineers
9:43 have a talent for satisfying the needs
9:46 of others but we struggle with our own
9:49 very evident need to better represent
9:54 ourselves as a profession and it's not
9:57 like we haven't tried outreach before in
10:01 fact if you look at the literature
10:03 governments have been funneling hundreds
10:04 of millions of dollars on an annual
10:07 basis to try to improve the public
10:12 perceptions of stem and engineering for
10:17 the most part unsuccessfully again why
10:22 why spend all this effort the problem is
10:25 that we keep treating the symptoms of
10:28 this with our outreach as inspirational
10:32 band-aids but not the cause the cause
10:36 being the k-12 education system is
10:42 missing the e word in stem so the longer
10:44 we continue to funnel our students into
10:46 this tract this system that hasn't
10:50 changed the harder it's going to be to
10:52 get out an accurate perception of
10:56 engineering this brings me to the last
10:59 part of my talk about being what can we
11:02 do and when I say we I don't mean the
11:04 government I don't mean the ministry I
11:06 mean you and me what
11:08 all of the people in this room do to
11:10 take a part of this problem into their
11:13 own lives and to answer that question
11:15 I've prepared a call to action for each
11:20 of you as homework to parents and k-12
11:24 educators I challenge you to say the e
11:29 word parents 94% of students consider
11:31 you a valuable resource in career
11:34 decisions but only 23% of you take the
11:36 time to talk to your kids about course
11:41 selection but that number goes up to 89%
11:44 if you knew that math and science
11:46 courses were not mandatory until grade
11:48 12 and that dropping them closes doors
11:52 to careers such as engineering say the e
11:57 word K to 12 educators it is the
11:59 responsibility of a teacher to raise the
12:02 next generation of global citizens you
12:04 are arguably the second most powerful
12:07 link influence and later the only link
12:10 between a group of minds and an
12:12 experience that can change their world
12:14 research opportunities outside of your
12:16 profession share that with your students
12:19 and don't you dare let those stereotypes
12:21 slip out of your mouth never take that
12:25 responsibility lightly to other
12:29 engineers I challenge you to share your
12:33 story we are the ambassador's of the
12:35 profession and the only ones who
12:38 actually know the answer to the question
12:41 what do engineers do that is your
12:44 responsibility my friends and take every
12:46 opportunity you can to share that with
12:51 others to fellow students I challenge
12:53 you to be proactive in your own
12:57 education take every opportunity offered
13:00 by your school for a conference talk or
13:03 stem outreach event leverage the
13:05 internet research career paths that are
13:08 interesting to you and most importantly
13:11 never stop challenging the status quo if
13:14 you see a better way to solve a problem
13:16 just solve it and don't let anyone stop you
13:18 you
13:23 and lastly to everybody else I challenge
13:25 you to learn how engineering affects
13:28 your life and share it talk to the
13:30 engineers you know find out how they got
13:32 into the profession and how it's changed
13:35 their perception of the world the next
13:37 time you buy something try and think
13:40 about why you're buying it how was it
13:43 made who decided to make it that way and
13:49 why most importantly talk about it
13:53 because you never know whose future you
13:56 might inspire thank you [Applause]
14:05 you [Music]
