April 21, 2010
Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA

The Grand Challenges of our times include producing alternative energy, safeguarding the environment, providing clean water and improving healthcare. The National Academy of Engineering has identified fourteen Grand Challenges in the broad areas of energy, environment, health, security, computation and learning. These are critical issues that must be addressed to maintain our national security, quality of life and a sustainable future, and today’s students must be prepared to face them.

On Wednesday, April 21, 2010, Babson College, Olin College of Engineering and Wellesley College will co-sponsor a regional summit on the Educational Imperatives of the Grand Challenges. This event will bring together educators and policy makers, business and community leaders for a discussion of the ways in which we can better prepare students to face these challenges.

While technology will play a key role in confronting each of these challenges, it cannot solve them alone. These problems are inherently interdisciplinary and global, and will require unprecedented levels of cooperation and holistic approaches. Global solutions--not new technologies--must be the objective, and these require innovation and cooperation among many fields, including engineering, business, government, economics, geology, biology and sociology, among others.

The summit at Wellesley will focus on new educational approaches to improve the way these fields can work together to solve the important, complex problems of our time, highlighting successes and collaboratively exploring the way forward.

The summit will be of interest to thought leaders in engineering, science, business, social sciences, education, business, arts and humanities. Together we can help prepare a new generation to tackle the grand challenges and improve life on the planet.

The Grand Challenge Summit Series represents a commitment to sustain critical dialogue and engagement with grand challenge problems and to change the way we educate our students in order to better prepare them for the challenges ahead.

Boston Summit Sponsors