The National Academy of Engineering has developed a list of what it considers the greatest technological issues facing our world today. Tomorrow's quality of life will depend on the ability of today's graduates to address these Grand Challenges.
Interdisciplinary teams of engineers, scientists, computer professionals, and technologists will be required to develop solutions to the many contemporary challenges facing our world.
Explore the Grand Challenges listed here. Are you inspired to help solve one or more of them?
- Make solar energy economical: Solar energy provides less than 1 percent of the world's energy. How can we realize its potential in a cost-effective way?
- Provide energy from fusion: Scientists have managed fusion on a small scale. Can it be implemented in an efficient, economical, and environmentally benign way?
- Develop carbon sequestration methods: How can excess carbon dioxide be captured and stored to prevent global warming?
- Manage the nitrogen cycle: Humans have thrown the nitrogen cycle out of balance. Can we rebalance it by improving fertilizers and capturing and recycling waste?
- Provide access to clean water: The world's clean water supply is threatened and in short supply. Can we develop affordable technologies to help millions of people around the world?
- Restore and improve urban infrastructure: Our urban infrastructures are outdated and in need of repair. Can advanced design and materials improve our systems and create sustainable urban environments?
- Advance health informatics: Can computerized health information systems safeguard us in times of crises and improve our everyday medical services?
- Engineer better medicines: Can new systems take advantage of genetic advances, sense body changes, assess new drugs, and deliver vaccines?
- Reverse-engineer the brain: Can intensely studying the way the brain works lead to advances in health care, manufacturing, and communication?
- Prevent nuclear terror: Can technology help us prevent and respond to a nuclear attack?
- Secure cyberspace: Can we secure our critical systems - such as banking, national security, and physical infrastructure - from a cyber-attack?
- Enhance virtual reality: Can we maximize the promise of true virtual reality for training, treatment, and communication?
- Advance personalized learning: Can we move from the one-size-fits-all educational approach to learning based on personal styles, speeds, interests, and capabilities?
- Engineer the tools of scientific discovery: In the century ahead, can technology develop the tools necessary to better understand the many unanswered questions of science?