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Summit Wrap-Up, Part 1

Imagine waking up on a Spring morning in 2046. Over the last two decades, the U.S. has experienced a sustained period of technological progress, rapid economic growth, social prosperity, and environmental stewardship.

Central to the achievement of this abundant future has been the engineering community. Through their commitments, actions, and achievements the engineering community has emerged as the pre-eminent driver of economic growth and abundance in the 21^st Century.

Looking back to 2025, the disruptive change and “future shock” experienced across the country due to governmental actions and the explosive growth of AI that year constituted, in the words of social scientist Kurt Lewin, an “unfreezing” moment. Previously frozen systems, policies, ways of doing things, and attitudes were suddenly tractable and new possibilities for positive futures emerged.

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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 register

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:

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“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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In June 2023, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in the case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, that barred colleges and universities from using race as a factor in admissions decisions. This decision represented a clear signal of change with respect to Diversity / Equity / Inclusion (DEI) programs in public and private organizations across the United States. Since that decision other signals of change confirming the pushback against DEI have emerged. These include actions by multiple state legislatures that ban DEI programs at state universities and legal challenges to corporate and non-profit DEI programs. This emerging trend, which was one of the focal points at our 2024 Engineering Change Lab – USA (ECL) Engineering Ideas Institute, brings significant implications for the engineering community workforce…. Read More

Mike McMeekin & Kyle Davy

In his new book, Wicked Problems, Guru Madhavan of the National Academy of Engineering tells the story of Ed Link, the inventor of the flight trainer for pilots which transformed the aviation industry in the early 20th century by addressing the educational, workforce, and cultural challenges that accompanied the rapid development of aviation technologies. Link’s technological expertise and systems approach addressed a significant challenge of his time. In the 21^st century, we face an even more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. The 2024 Engineering Change Lab – USA (ECL) Engineering Ideas Institute featured a deep dive into the role of the engineering community in this VUCA world. Madhavan posed a key question to the participants in the Institute, “What is the equivalent of a Link trainer for engineering in the 21^st century?”

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