In this talk, the speaker emphasizes that solving major challenges like climate change requires active participation from all three sectors—government, academia, and industry. The government provides funding and policy direction, and constituents can influence representatives. Universities house enthusiastic, talented students who are unafraid of failure and can tackle big problems, exemplified by the speaker’s involvement with an advisory board for an engineering education initiative funded by a National Science Foundation grant aimed at making undergraduate engineers more innovative and entrepreneurial. Companies, especially entrepreneurial leaders, have the freedom to address real-world problems directly, illustrated by Dean Kamen’s simple approach of asking doctors about their problems and then solving them. The overall message encourages individuals to engage with their representatives, support innovative education, and adopt a problem‑focused mindset in business.
Chapters
You know, I think that, and I'm glad I didn't go to my slides because, you know, this is much more fun and interactive. But I think that it requires everyone. And I'll tell you why I say that. It requires each sector. So each sector has an advantage. You know, in some sense the government has funding and opportunity to move the needle, but you have Congress that appropriates as well as does policy and appropriates working with the executive branch. And I think the one thing that we don't appreciate is the power that each one of us has to influence in a very positive way. Their representatives in Washington, they do listen to you, they do respond to their constituents. And so I would really recommend everybody to be very active in letting their voice be heard. Then I think about the university and I think you've got an army of talented, bright, enthusiastic individuals who have one other thing going for them and that is they don't know that they can't do anything. I mean, let me put that in positive. They haven't failed yet. I love undergraduate and graduate students because they'll try to take on, I mean, it's sort of like the old saying, what would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail? You try and solve our energy problems, you'd try and solve the climate change, you take on great things and students have taken on great, great projects and been very successful. So one of the things that, you know, I wanted to be part of the advisory board for EPPE because I thought that, you know, this is the right place to engineer pathways to innovation to solve important problems. So let me give you a little background on that. We just got a National Science foundation grant to transform engineering education across the United States to make undergraduate engineers in all these engineering schools more innovative and entrepreneurial. And Christina Johnson has agreed to be on our advisory board. So we are very appreciative of that and really look forward to getting your input and guidance as we move forward. We just launched a couple of months ago and the last piece is what companies allow you to do, especially if you're running them, which is helpful. I mean, maybe hopeful too is really you could be an all out entrepreneur because you're really unfettered just by your ability to convince people that adopting your technology, your approach, your process will help them. And so it's very, very, very simple. I mean, how many of you heard of Dean Kamen, fabulous national resource, been very innovative, did the Segway, did the, I think the kidney dialysis machine and portable insulin pump. Here's what he said. To me. I said, dean, how do you generate business? How do you figure all these things out? He goes, it's really simple. I sit down at the doc and I say, what's your problem? And I thought, oh, wow. And then they tell me my problem, and then I solve it. So that's a lot of freedom, as long as you can get someone to pay for it.
