Yesterday, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced the grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century. A panel of 18 thought leaders, representing a diverse range of expertise, spent over a year trying to identify factors that can lead to improving life on our planet. The panel produced a list of 14 “grand challenges,” all of which can have important public health and economic implications. Three of the identified challenges are directly related to healthcare (in bold). Here’s what the panel came up with:

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

More information: NAE

Filed under: Innovation