The U.S. National Academy of Engineering is requesting your input on Grand Challenges for Engineering over the next 100 years. This being Nanodot, we hope you’ll nominate nanotechnology. It’s a serious effort funded by $500,000 from NSF. From the MSNBC coverage:
The comments will be winnowed down, then reviewed by an 18-member blue-ribbon committee headed by former Defense Secretary William Perry. Among the other members are Google co-founder Larry Page, genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter and millionaire inventors Dean Kamen and Ray Kurzweil.
And this being Nanodot, we hope you’ll nominate not just generic nanotechnology, but programmable, atomically-precise manufacturing, also termed productive nanosystems. You can see examples of earlier suggestions on the comment submission page.
Although they specify a 100-year timeframe, your suggestion is more likely to be selected if you aim for the first half of that, I would bet. And remember to relate your goal to a real human problem facing us today; that will help. See the list of judges before writing your comment. —Christine
