Any thoughts or comments on my assumptions about the future challenges in engineering and engineering education??

What do engineering and engineering education need to be in the 21st century?

            To see into the future requires assumptions about our future society and the future of engineering and engineering education. These are my assumptions:

·         knowledge-human knowledge and technical knowledge will advance at a furious pace, the fastest in recorded human history doubling every ten years; perhaps even at an accelerating pace as we engage hundreds of millions of more humans in advanced education and commerce in Asia and China; (National Academy of Engineering, 2005)

·         knowledge-the scope and depth human knowledge and technical knowledge will be advancing so rapidly that continuous learning is now a requirement of competency in in every scientific or professional discipline; (National Academy of Engineering, 2005)

·         knowledge-problems faced by teams of 21st century engineers will not be bounded by a single technology or geography and will be influenced and constrained by the social tensions that exist within and across cultures, between countries and bounded by the role of engineers as defined within these societies and engineering disciplines; (Vest, 2008)

·         practice-technical competence will remain the number one selector for engineers and engineering educators, (Crawley, 2007)

·         practice-professional engineer work forces will function in a  integrated multicultural, multidisciplinary, and instantly electronically connected virtual team work environment, aka, the 21st century workplace; (Vest, 2008)

·         practice-engineers globally will source or acquire any missing knowledge or skills required to solve problems working in a team environment not as individuals; (Vest, 2008)

·         practice-engineering education and engineering educators will have to continuously acquire, and even create new knowledge, about engineering and about how to educate engineers to serve in the 21st century (Crawley, 2007) also XXX

·         society-The earth's resources will reach ever more crucial limits or constraints on reproduction or replenishment as we have already reached with fish stocks, fresh water, raw materials, and food distribution; (The Economist, 2010)

·         society-The earth's population will grow from 6 billion in 2010 to 8 billion in 2040 and 9 billion in 2070;(The Economist, 2010)

·         engineering education-the tension of technical competence versus the expanding role of engineers in society will remain a huge challenge for the improvement of engineering education; and (Crawley, 2007)

·         engineering education-the tensions and boundaries limiting the role of engineering in society and engineering education research in engineering will not magically disappear. (Crawley, 2007)