Nobody can negate the extremly important role of engineering, affecting every aspect of our life. Engineering, however, has to face with a lot of grand challenges arise more and more. Engineering has a big responsibility not only modernizing the world, but also inventing the green- economic technologies as well. First of all, engineering has a responsibility to satisfy the human beings’ needs. Engineers have been providing human with conveniences, from fundamental needs : the techonology to create food, technology to refresh keep water, to higher requirements : rapid transportation, entertainment, joy of living. In the past, if people wanted to move from one place to another place, the unique way was walking. Then we had bicycles, and nowadays, there are more and more means of transport to choose. The innovation resulted from the requirements of people and inspiration of engineers. That’s why an engineer has to have non-stop thinking of the new things based on the people’s needs.The second challenge to engineering is that inventions have to be considerated as the balance between economics and environment. A lot of technologies have been invented in the modern time and contributing in the development of the world a lot. However, they caused many serious problems such as pollutions and diseases. For example, the invention of the car has remarked a significant point in the history. But exhausted fumes from cars and other vehicles is one of the main reason which has made the increase of the amount of carbon dioxide in the air and causes greenhouse effect. Besides, some environmentally friendly technologies arising are resisted by users due to the financial problems. Green inventions often cost a lot of money and it will not suitable with the majority of population in the world who are still in need of food, education, and more practical needs.In conclusion, people challenge engineering in order to look forward to a modern world and greener environment in the future based on the inspiration and talent of engineers.
Reference
National Academy of Engineering. (2008, February). Introduction to the
grand challenges of engineering. Retrieved June 3, 2008, from
http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221.aspx
