“GCSP gave me the golden opportunities to contribute to the sustainability of our future world. While improving my engineering skills, equal importance is given to me to upgrade my own values. As part of this program, I am not only ...
“The Grand Challenge Scholars Program (GCSP) introduced me to a broader engineering world related to interdisciplinary society containing finance, art, and politics consideration. For a global view of civil development, under GCSP, after the ...
“GCSP showed me that engineers of the 21st century must be interdisciplinary. The world's problems cannot be solved by one industry, one company, or one major. Effectively communicating a technology's solution is just as important as ...
Being in the GCSP encouraged me to pursue a well-rounded, global education. I found opportunities to perform research and travel to India and Ghana and also took a fantastic class in entrepreneurship that I never would have without GCSP. My long ...
“Through the GCSP, I worked on two projects that have impacts on computer system security and reliability. The first was developing a dynamic algorithm for protecting databases against timing channel attacks, which would reduce data leakage. ...
The NAE Grand Challenges for Engineering, created in 2008, presented an aspirational vision of what engineering needs to deliver to all people on the planet in the 21st century. In just 15 words, the vision it calls for is:
“Continuation of life on the planet, making our world more sustainable, secure, healthy, and joyful.”
The century-spanning vision was based on 14 GOALS that the NAE recognized as necessary to deliver this vision in the 21st century.
Numerous engineering schools and K-12 programs have adopted the NAE Grand Challenges to inspire practical projects for their students through an educational supplement called the Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP), which identifies the following five competencies that students must achieve to prepare to address these global challenges:
Addressing any of the Grand Challenges for Engineering naturally spans multiple disciplines, and because solutions are implemented differently in different parts of the world, the program prepares students to think in international terms and to develop globally relevant perspectives and skills.
The GCSP was inspired by the NAE but is not controlled by the academy. Each adopting university, college, and school is independently drawn to the program—often by its students—and defines its own supplemental approach to preparing students in the five competencies within its existing engineering program. Each institution selects its students, determines their attainment of the competencies, and decides how it will recognize their achievement.
For more information on the GCSP, please contact Sherri Hunter (SHUNTER@NAE.EDU) or GCSP Proposal Review Committee Chair Katie Evans (KEVANS@LATECH.EDU).