Engineering Change Lab-USA (ECL-USA) is a catalyst for change within the engineering community, helping it reach its highest potential on behalf of society
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ECL Launches Campaign to Sponsor Engineering Student Attendance at Beyond Disruption Summit
Engineering Change Lab – USA (ECL) is committed to including students in our discussions of the future of engineering. To support that goal, we have launched a campaign to raise scholarship funds to support student attendance at our fall summit, Beyond Disruption: Pioneering a New Path for the Engineering Community.
The summit will explore the changing landscape that has emerged in 2025 and imagine a new vision and path forward for the engineering community. Including the voice of students will enhance and complete the discussions at the summit. Now is the time for the engineering community to take a clear-eyed look at today’s realities and take the lead in forging a new path.
Please consider donating by visiting our GoFundMe page at this link.
Our goal for the campaign is to raise $15,000 to support the attendance of ten students at the summit. We appreciate our early donors who have helped us exceed $3,000 in donations so far. Help us continue this momentum and support additional students.
Every donation, no matter the size, will help students gain critical insights and network with leaders, shaping their future as stewards of technology and society. Please consider using the Share button on our GoFundMe site to connect with your industry associates!
Students who are interested in this opportunity should reach out to Mike McMeekin, ECL Executive Director ([email protected]) before October 3, 2025.
Learn more and registerEnvisioning a New Water Ethic for the Engineering Community – Summit Wrap-Up
Kyle Davy and Mike McMeekin
According to author Peter Gleick, human history has been shaped by our relationship with water. Gleick’s recent book, The Three Ages of Water: Prehistoric Past, Imperiled Present, and a Hope for the Future, recaps this history. In the First Age of Water, early civilizations formed based on the natural availability of water, and the first attempts to control water for human consumption and agriculture were conceived. The Second Age of Water coincided with the emergence of science and technology and followed a “hard path” marked by the engineering and construction of major water-related infrastructure – dams, drinking water and wastewater treatment systems, hydro-electric generation facilities, and irrigation systems. This age produced huge benefits to humanity, along with unintended consequences in the form of withdrawals beyond natural recharge, pollution, and damage to eco-systems. In addition, despite the remarkable advances of the Second Age, we have still failed to provide safe water and sanitation for everyone.
In his kick-off address to Engineering Change Lab – USA’s (ECL) Envisioning a New Water Ethic for the Engineering Community Summit, Peter Gleick outlined the history of the first two ages of water and offered a blueprint for a hopeful future, a “necessary and possible transition” to the Third Age of Water. According to Gleick, this new “soft path” must:
Envisioning a New Water Ethic for the Engineering Community – Virtual Preview Wrap-Up
“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Aldo Leopold
How will the engineering community adapt to the rapidly changing world of water management? Are we content to keep responding incrementally or will we rise to the challenge of fundamentally rethinking how we engage with water? How can a new water ethic be part of a national movement driven by local solutions? Those were the questions posed by Dave White of Arizona State University and Sarah Robinson of the U.S. Water Alliance as they kicked off the April 8 virtual preview portion of Engineering Change Lab – USA’s (ECL) Envisioning a New Water Ethic for the Engineering Community Summit.
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We are living in a world that is facing an unprecedented combination of technological change…
and rapidly evolving societal needs, driven in large part by environmental imperatives. As this uncertain future unfolds, maintaining the status quo is not an option for the engineering community. The imperative for change and adaptation has driven the formation of ECL-USA.
Learn More about ECL-USASummits
ECL-USA convenes two to three times a year to share perspectives, deepen our understanding of engineering’s emerging future, and to launch experiments and focused initiatives designed both to foster change across the entire engineering system from education to practice to research to licensure.
Upcoming SummitsOur Way Forward
Our way forward is through action inspired by the Engineering Change Lab-USA’s mission. ECL-USA was started in 2017, with the mission of becoming a catalyst for change within the engineering profession, by helping the profession reach its highest potential on behalf of society.
To achieve our mission, we will:
- Bring together stakeholders, innovative thinkers, and change agents to explore and generate new knowledge about the role of engineering in an emerging future.
- Self-organize as an independent (non-aligned) entity – complementing existing stakeholder organizations (professional societies and associations), not attempting to duplicate their efforts.
- Become a communications hub, linking and sharing knowledge between stakeholders engaged in creating the future of the engineering community (profession).
- Engage in and lead collaborative initiatives designed to transform the engineering community (profession) to help it thrive in an evolving world.
