Engineers are innovators and problem solvers. Engineers are often focused on improving the wellbeing of human life through the development of buildings, transportation, food and energy resources. The world’s population is growing rapidly and as a result, food consumption and pollution are also increasing rapidly. As the world has developed, the needs of people have also developed; people are demanding for more convenience in their life.
Here are some of the greatest challenges engineers are facing now and in the future:
Clean Water Accessibility:
The world’s population is increasing daily and accessibility to clean water is becoming a major challenge for the engineers. Water is a basic need and a lack of it can lead to death. It is estimated that 29% of the world does not have access to safe drinking water. Engineers in the clean water industry desalinate the saltwater in oceans and make them safely available to the masses.
Food Provision
Food is also a basic need for survival. As the world’s population is expanding, the need for nutritious food is also increasing. Engineers are facing the problem of providing enough food to the people. Food Engineers are working to alleviate malnutrition and hunger; this is mainly through agricultural, manufacturing innovations and effective bioengineering.
Economical Solar Energy
Solar energy renewable energy source. It is a clean source of energy because there are no green-house gas emissions in the production of electricity from solar panels. Unfortunately, it is expensive to produce so it is a major challenge for engineers to make it economically viable. Electrical engineers are trying to make the panels more energy efficient so that costs can be reduced. Fewer panels with maximum energy output is the long term goal.
Gender Disparity in Engineering
EngineeringUK reported that just 12% of those working in engineering are female. Boys are more likely to choose engineering as a career than girls. his disparity is largely due to girls dropping out of the educational pipeline at every decision point, despite generally performing better than boys in STEM subjects at school. The gender imbalance in engineering can be tackled by encouraging women to select engineering as their career.
Virtual Reality Enhancement
Virtual reality is a novel technology that provides an excellent opportunity to diversify any sort of business by giving users the impression of being somewhere other than where they are. In many specialized fields, virtual reality is now becoming a powerful source for training as well as practice. This growing technology is creating computer-simulated environments. For virtual reality systems to fully simulate reality effectively, several engineering hurdles must be overcome and the possibilities for its use are endless.
Lack of Expert Teachers
A student’s interest and engagement in any subject often depends on the teacher’s effectiveness. Students are often taught by teachers who do not specialize in the subjects that they are teaching. This can have an impact on the next generation of engineers. In order to deal with this challenge, it should be compulsory for engineering lecturers to have the technical knowledge to teach the students.
Health Care Improvement
Medicine and health care have always been and will always be a challenging area. Biomedical engineers are continuously trying to make new systems for processing genetic information. This is mainly to find out how individuals respond differently to different treatments and drugs requires more understanding. The 2 main challenges for engineers in the next decade are strategies to control drug-resistant infections as well as personalized medicines. Vaccine development is a large part of these challenges.
Cyber Security
The cyber world is becoming vast. At an early age, cybersecurity problems were only associated with computers but now almost everything has an internet connection, so nothing is safe from cyber threats. Criminals are coming with new hacks as they are also getting smarter day by day. So engineers are facing challenges to deal with this threat by making internet security systems safer.
Attracting Engineers In the Future
Another challenge for engineers in the future will be to make sure that the profession will continue to develop. It is important to attract young people towards an engineering career so that standard of living will keep on improving for the inhabitants of the world.
The Climate Crisis
The climate crisis will be one of the main challenges for engineers in the coming decade as it will not only affect a part of society, but it will affect all of us. Climate change is a growing issue that requires instant attention from engineers. The problems of climate change are becoming more evident as experts have been linking wildfires and food shortages to the fact that we have not utilized the planets resources in a sustainable manner. Engineers will be at the front line to help offset pollution that is created by human beings. Engineers will be required to find sustainable solutions to energy problems. Therefore, engineers of the future will need to be more environmentally conscious.
