“Whereof what’s past is prologue; what to come, In yours and my discharge.” – William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”

It is the responsibility of our engineering and information professions to appropriately address societal problems in our specific areas of expertise, particularly those which we ourselves may have helped create. For example, three common issues relevant to the electrical engineer involve deficiencies in power, privacy and environmental protection. These deficiencies arise from otherwise beneficial aspects of engineering learning, development and implementation.

The good news is the electrical power issue arises from the many advantageous items of electrical manufacture in widespread use. The computer privacy issue arises from the generally beneficial reduction in the costs of data computation, storage and communications. The environmental protection issue arises from the generally beneficial reductions in the costs of power production and transmission, and land use concerns of power transmission.

But there is another issue that the engineer may have helped create but has not helped fully resolve: gender inequality in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

The Gender Gap in STEM Fields

Although they currently make up the majority of college students, women represent only about 25 percent of those engaged in these high-technology fields, according to a U.S. Census survey.

Cognitive engineering, or the use of computing to augment engineering thinking, might help decrease concerns of gender disparity. This is because cognitive engineering — extracting, assembling and learning from the enormous amounts of past information — to some extent makes engineering time-agnostic. With the results of past issues available to all students, the differentiators can be refocused on the current vision, expertise and productivity of the individual engineer.

A reduction in gender disparity and a rationalization of past experiential time may benefit society since some of the larger problems, ranging from de-industrialization and degraded manufacturing capability to diminished schools, are symptoms of a larger issue and not root causes. To some extent, they arise from two interrelated problems that are particularly addressable by more diversity in the engineering professions.

These historical problems are a misunderstanding and lack of appreciation by some as to the profession of engineering and a lack of clear vision or commitment as articulated by engineers regarding a future technology trajectory.

The Problems With Being an Engineer

Regarding the fundamental issues of engineering professionalism, the classic professions were medicine, law, the military and the clergy. Certainly, recent events demonstrate all too clearly ample anecdotal failings of each of these classic vocations.

Indeed, the education, preparation and discipline required to become an engineer is at least as rigorous as that needed for the above professions, and our responsibility to the public is often equal or greater. So why does the engineering profession not evoke its inherent professional voice or enjoy esteem in some areas of public discourse?

Perhaps the main problem is a dichotomy in the engineer’s scope of action: The engineer, in many instances, is not considered to display either independent judgment or energetically articulate societal needs regarding technology.

One wouldn’t expect a physician (male or female) to offer no opinion on matters of public health, but there is a reticence for engineers to discuss matters of community technology. But the result of this is unfortunate: Rather than the engineer becoming an advocate for responsible improvement, he or she may become an order taker. And later, that engineer might become a commoditized product him or herself, with a quantity of engineers being requisitioned just as steel or pencils are.

The second related problem involves lack of engineering leadership in the world’s technology trajectory. Ideally, engineers should not only be recognized as engineers — designers and operators of engines (as vital as that is) — but as true ingenieurs, men and women who use structured ingenuity to solve problems through the appropriate technology.

Science Can Help Solve Problems

Science helps us to understand the world as it is; engineering helps us to use or transform this world to improve the lot of humanity. The 21st-century engineer must not only pursue patents, but also must make patent to society those aspects of science that are now latent. Yet even this underutilized need for speaking out was discouraged in many women.

Reflecting on my childhood, I always considered myself fortunate to be among “the first of the second generation of electronic engineers” — learning technology like fun on my father’s knee. But I also knew the good fortune to be the beneficiary of a technically adept mother and several doting aunts, all of whom took a generous and loving interest in my scientific development.

Until very recently, I rued the fact that these exceptional women were regrettably ahead of their time. After returning to normal life after experiences in farm, factory and office, their vocations generally did not fit in smoothly with their avocations. Neither they nor society fully harvested their many talents.

But recently, I’m not so sure. Perhaps these women were not ahead of their time; maybe it was they who helped engineer our time. Their accomplishments — and unfortunately, in some cases, their disappointments — provided the springboard for the emerging society and technical innovations we now see every day.

Supporting Women Engineers

In the past, young boys were sometimes expected to be engineers and builders while young women were sometimes expected to be ingenues — smart, but decorative. But this disparity is no longer the case; the reticence to speak among young women is diminishing, and engineering in many areas is more of a gender-neutral, real-time discipline.

Perhaps this will be a benefit of cognitive engineering. With more of the world’s corpus of engineering analyzed and available, there can be a flowering and a building of the talents of the engineer and the ingenieur — and also of the ingenue and the ingenious. This can lead to the computational incorporating of all the accomplishments, data and information of the past, but not the burdens.