Post By Elmer Atienza

I recently discovered this website and webpage (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221.aspx) that describes the “Grand Challenges of Engineering” as pronounced by the National Academy of Engineering (of the National Academies). The Grand Challenges of Engineering are, in the order of their poll results:

1. Make solar energy economical.
2. Provide energy from fusion.
3. Provide access to clean water.
4. Reverse-engineer the brain.
5. Advance personalized learning.
6. Develop carbon sequestration methods.
7. Engineer the tools of scientific discovery.
8. Restore and improve urban infrastructure.
9. Advance health informatics.
10. Prevent nuclear terror.
11. Engineer better medicines.
12. Enhance virtual reality.
13. Manage the nitrogen cycle.
14. Secure cyberspace.

Should we, as designers, have a similar list of “grand challenges” of our own, as pronounced by one of our representative organizations such as the IDSA, DMI, AIA or AIGA? Or could we, as designers along with our representative organizations, partner with engineers and the National Academy of Engineering to surmount these challenges since they can all be viewed as design problems that will require design thinking as much as scientific thinking to formulate hypotheses, research, conceive, test and evaluate, and reiterate possible solutions? Most of these grand challenges will require the design and development of objects and interactions that will manipulated by people for their effects, and will thus require the unique skill-sets and mind-sets of architects, product designers, industrial designers, interaction designers and graphic designers.

For designers, here lies a fantastic opportunity to lose or gain ownership of the kinds of problems for which viable solutions will not only help the lot of humanity but will establish respect for design’s role in the improvement of our lives.