KurzweilAI.net wrote:Ray Kurzweil will join New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and two other journalists in a National Academy of Engineering symposium on communicating the "Grand Challenges for Engineering," to be webcaston Monday Oct. 6 at 9:30 a.m. EDT (register for webcast here).
The Grand Challenges for Engineering project is designed to spark public discussion and awareness of ways that engineering can improve how we live, including making solar energy affordable, reverse-engineering the brain, and engineering better medicines.
Full program:
Moderator: Aaron Brown, Walter Cronkite Professor of Journalism, Arizona State University, former CNN and ABC News anchor
9:30 - 9:40 a.m. Welcome
Charles M. Vest, president, National Academy of Engineering, former president of MIT
9:40 - 10:00 a.m. Overview of the Grand Challenges
The Honorable William J. Perry*, professor, Stanford University, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, and chair, Grand Challenges for Engineering committee
10:00 - 10:45 a.m. Panel Discussion
How do we more effectively communicate the Grand Challenges, and the steps necessary to address them, to the public?
10:45 - 11:00 a.m. Audience Q&A Session
11:00 - 11:30 a.m. Break
11:30 a.m - 12:15 p.m. Panel Discussion
NAE link
National Academy of Engineering wrote:The Challenges
- Make solar energy affordable
- Provide energy from fusion
- Develop carbon sequestration methods
- Manage the nitrogen cycle
- Provide access to clean water
- Restore and improve urban infrastructure
- Advance health informatics
- Engineer better medicines
- Reverse-engineer the brain
- Prevent nuclear terror
- Secure cyberspace
- Enhance virtual reality
- Advance personalized learning
- Engineer the tools for scientific discovery
Committee members include:
- William Perry (committee chair), former secretary of defense
- Dean Kamen, DEKA Research and Development Corp.
- Larry Page, co-founder Google Inc.
- J. Craig Venter, president, The J. Craig Venter Institute