Engineering challenges for the 21st century

The National Academy of Engineering asked a panel of very interesting and thoughtful people to come up with a list of the most important engineering challenges for this century. The group is really impresive. Here are some of the members:

• J. Craig Venter (human genome decoding, first artificial chromosome...).
• Dean Kamen (mobile dialysis machine, insulin pumps, Segway...).
  
• Ray Kurzweil (OCR, text-to-speech...)
  
• Larry Page (Google)
  

So, this group of engineering titans produced a list of general technology fields instead of trying to ascertain the need for any particular specific devices. These are the fourteen challenges proposed with my comment for each:

1. Make solar energy economical: right, but economical in this context means reaching efficiencies above 70%
   
2. Provide energy from fusion: it'll be ready in 25 years! (as it's been the case during the last 40)
   
3. Develop carbon sequestration methods: here's my candidate! (biochar)
4. Manage the Nitrogen cycle: we're going to need a lot of Mr. Venter talent for this one; and a lot less of the European GMO fearmongering than we have right now
5. Provide access to clean water: the way I see it this is mainly an economic challenge
6. Restore and improve urban infraestructure: upwards, please!
7. Advance health informatics: yes, but it won't be the silver bullet many people expect
   
8. Engineer better medicines: this one, on the other hand...
9. Reverse-engineer the brain: I'm afraid we won't be able to
10. Prevent nuclear terror: yes, please. Or even better, prevent terror. Period
11. Secure cyberspace: from splits? from rogues? from thieves? from governments?
    
12. Enhance virtual reality: c'mon Ray, you had to sneak this one?
13. Advance personal learning: and this one too?
14. Engineer the tools of scientific discovery: this more of an ongoing concern than solving a specific incoming challenge

It's a good list, if only a bit too politically correct. However, I miss a very important challenge not addressed there that is much more pressing than a few of the ones that got into the list (like 2, 6, 11, 12 and 13): advance energy storage technology.

Measuring Innovation

Innovation is one of the basic foundations of any dynamic economy. The (current) problem with the concept of innovation is that its own relevancy has rendered the term almost meaningless. Innovation has become just another management (and government) buzz-word, a fad. It is thus essential, if we are to manage innovation efficiently and define sound policies to foster it, that we can agree on what we are talking about and, more to the point, how to measure it.

On the terminology side of that effort, we have initiatives like the Spanish UNE-166000 set of standards that aim to define concepts and approaches related to innovation, innovative projects and innovation management systems. The basic framework is closely related to that of other management standards like the ISO 9000 for quality management systems or the ISO 14000 for environmental management systems.

So far so good but, more than delimiting which are the processes that we will refer to as innovations, what we really need to learn is how to measure their outcomes and results. This is in no way an easy task, because the innovative process permeates all the levels and sectors of a modern economy. Economists frequently use Total Factor Productivity (pdf) as the best measure to estimate the impact of innovation, but it hasn't been established in any meaningful way that every increment in TFP is attributable to innovation. Innovation diffusion, crucially, has an important effect in TFP without any new innovation taking place. Determining what are the subjacent causes for increases in worker productivity isn't exactly straightfoward.

Nonetheless, some efforts are being undertaken in this field. The most thorough one that I know of is this one: Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economy. It's been produced by the U.S. Department of Commerce and with the participation of some industry heavyweights (like the CEOs of Microsoft, IBM, Medtronics...). The report is really insightful and I strongly recommend reading it for anyone interested in innovation policies and metrics, but don't expect it to ultimately clear all the blurry parts of the innovation picture.

If what you want to measure is the volume and activities of the innovative process, instead of its ultimate efect on the economy, the best reference I know of is the OECD Oslo Manual. It's a must read.

(Thanks to orgtheory.net)

John Doe(rr)

As everybody who's been near a RSS reader today already knows, Apple has unveiled their SDK for the iPhone and a slew of Enterprise-oriented functionality.

But you don't come here to read what's been elsewhere for hours, do you? Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has announced the iFund:

(...) a $100M investment initiative that will fund market-changing ideas and products that extend the revolutionary new iPhone and iPod touch platform. The iFund is agnostic to size and stage of investment and will invest in companies building applications, services and components. Focus areas include location based services, social networking, mCommerce (including advertising and payments), communication, and entertainment. The iFund will back innovators pursuing transformative, high-impact ideas with an eye towards building independent durable companies atop the iPhone / iPod touch platform.

Legendary venture capitalist John Doerr is one of the partners that will manage the fund. He funded a few start-ups in the past. Ever heard of Netscape? Sun Microsystems? Compaq? Google?

This, my friends, is how innovation really happens: someone with guts, brains and money provides funds and oversight for a startup with a great business plan, an energized team and, hopefully, a little bit of luck.

Technology adoption rates

The ever interesting Visualizing Economics points to this NY Times article featuring a terrific graphic by Nicholas Felton that shows the rate of adoption for serveral mass-consumer (eventually, anyway) technologies along the twentieth century:

(Click on the image to view a larger version)