Future of Engineering

Panel identifies greatest technological research challenges of the 21st century

A panel of 18 maverick thinkers, convened by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), today identified what they consider to be the greatest technological research challenges facing society in the coming century.

Notable panelists on the NAE committee include former director of the National Institutes of Health Bernadine Healy; Google co-founder Larry Page; geneticist and businessman J. Craig Venter, Nobel Laureate Mario Molina, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, and climate change expert Rob Socolow.

The list of the 14 Grand Challenges:

Engineering better medicines;
Advancing health informatics;
Providing access to clean water;
Providing energy from fusion;
Making solar energy economical;
Restoring and improving urban infrastructure;
Enhancing virtual reality;
Reverse engineering the brain;
Exploring natural frontiers;
Advancing personalized learning;
Developing carbon sequestration methods;
Managing the nitrogen cycle;
Securing cyberspace,
Preventing nuclear terror.

See the full interview here with Socolow, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University

Related blogposts
Panel identifies greatest technological research challenges of the 21st century
Greatest technological challenges of the 21st century

Labels: Sciences, Society