Information Technology: Driving innovation, Engineering the engineer

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1 Information Technology: Driving innovation, Engineering the engineer Rajesh Gupta Computer Science and Engineering Electrical and Computer Engineering (courtesy)

2 Transformational Influence of Engineering on Society Materials and Components Understanding of properties, behavior Manipulation at gross level to create artifacts Information Technology Convergence of information (data) and communication Also ultimate tool of free speech (Vinton Cerf) Biotechnology/Genetics New computational microscopes driving life sciences.

3 Information Technology influences How we communicate, interact, and share collaboration is the default mode of interaction How do we build things and commerce Manufacturing evolving from SIMD to MIMD Market of one, mass customization, new economics How do we conduct the business processes Walmart inventory control Verizon billing system How do we conduct science Explosion in data sources Automatic, learning, inferencing, and validation and so on.

4 Information infrastructure has become a fundamental enabler of Science Computers Data management systems The World Wide Web Digital Libraries Visualization systems Communication systems Fran Berman, SDSC Geosciences Data Management and Mining Astronomy Physics Life Sciences

5 Raising the Engineering Talent for the Coming Generations How IT is driving the engineering profession?

k.a. Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott He played the quintessential engineer that was able to work miracles.

6 The Engineer circa 24 th Century JAMES DOOHAN a.k.a. Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott He played the quintessential engineer that was able to work miracles. Hence the name 'The Miracle Worker'. He appeared in all seven of the Star Trek movies with an appearance on Star Trek The Next Generation in the episode 'Relics'. One of the more memorable lines from that episode is Scotty talking to the holodeck computer saying: "N-C- C No bloody A, B, C, or D".

7 The Engineer The quintessential engineer, circa 1970 Calculus, material properties, fluid/thermo dynamics Time variant, time invariant systems, signals and circuits Ability to quantify, parameterize problem space Practical and practiced The quintessential engineer, circa 2010 Engineering at the interfaces: vanishing middle-of-the-roader Design processes, Innovative, Entrepreneurial Ability to gather insight from data and make it part of virtual experience Model based reasoning, abstraction and reuse of technology solutions Ability to constantly relearn, changing material/technological realities Simulation-enabled and virtually equipped

8 Some sobering thoughts Half-life of an engineering degree Varies from 7 years to 18 months 50% of knowledge acquired by an engineer finishing a CS/E degree is obsolete in 2 years In some case, we are already teaching obsolete material. 80% of the jobs current high school students will apply do not exist today 80% of new employees leave their employer in first 3 years Innovation in applications is increasingly an offshore activity.

9 ABET Certification Criteria, 2004/2005 Engineering Facilities Ceramic Engineering Chemical Engineering

10 Mechanical Engineering Industrial Engineering Materials Engineering

11 Information Technology in Engineering Driven by the need to ensure Scalability of solutions Operational efficiency of methods... across the engineering disciplines. Key movements in skills: Programming Statistics Files Optimization Algorithms Statistical learning Data organization Pareto optimization

12 Computer Science & Engineering

13 The CS Boiler Plate

14 Changing Life, Living, Science, Society

15 Why Nanoscale Systems? Very compelling reasons for (hyper) integration 50 mm 2, 50M transistors, MIPS/mW, $5/part Technology Enabler: no wires, no battery, no stiffness, no cost Technology convergence = New systems capabilities Computing and radios On the horizon: sensing, micromechanical, microfluidics Biofluidic sample preparation, transport, disposal Chemical analysis, biological assays In-situ monitoring, control, communication, adaptation Remotely operated, reconfigurable laboratories for biochemical analysis

16 Chips into Fabrics and Buildings Ember radios and networks Source: Ember Networks

17 Chips in Human Body Source: Shkel (MAE), Ikei (Biomed), Zheng (ENT), UC Irvine

18 µsystems have a place in major human endeavors Communications: Wireless, Sensor networks, open spectrum Entertainment: Virtual worlds, education, multimedia delivery Medicine and Biology: lab-on-chip, devices & disability assists Instrumented wide-area spaces Transportation: automotive, avionics Physical Sciences: big science, life sciences Exploration: space, oceanic Personal area spaces Internet end-points In-body, in-cell, in-vitro spaces These innovations require significant marketplace participation.

19 Engineers as Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship Technological success advance intimately intimately tied tied to its to acceptance its acceptance in the marketplace in the marketplace Entrepreneurship is about combination of resources Innovation is at the heart of entrepreneurship Creativity drives innovation Technological change provides the opportunity (sustaining or disruptive) To succeed, invention needs co-invention supporting technology adoption, proliferation, network effects. IP, Organization, Privacy, Policy implications,

20 Question How should engineering education be structured now to produce engineering talent best prepared for 2010 and beyond? Research initiatives at the interfaces of life, society and science IT & creative/business processes, large scale systems, assistive technologies, data and knowledge management, crisis response. Proactively prepare engineering talent for innovation Creative element shift from pure technology to applications Science of Design IT skills: algorithms, learning, organizing data, communicating. Ability to model and navigate complex, adaptive systems with emergent behaviors.

21 Measures of Success Spur a culture of innovation across broad spectrum of engineering disciplines driven by new technology, tools, and cognitive capabilities As evidenced by at scale collaborative efforts, new programs As evidenced by demand for our engineering graduates. Steps in that direction: Cal-IT2 samples: Urban crisis response (RESCUE), WIISARD Center for Networked Systems (CNS) Center for MicroSystems Engineering (CMSE) with emerging effort on assistive technologies. A school-wide program on basic abstractions of IT, technologies and trends, requirements, co-inventions, design principles, economic and social aspects. 2-3 courses as a minor to the undergraduate program

22 Open Questions? In the spectrum between a complete service to a specialized program in CSE Where exactly IT would lie? What short term industry needs would be served? Where is the threshold of pain in engineering personnel? Should there be a line between technology and applications? Is there?

COURSE 2. Mechanical Engineering at MIT

COURSE 2. Mechanical Engineering at MIT COURSE 2 Mechanical Engineering at MIT The Department of Mechanical Engineering MechE embodies the Massachusetts Institute of Technology s motto mens et manus, mind and hand as well as heart by combining