May/June 2020

PE Report
Engineers Urged to Take On Coronavirus

Engineers across generations were called to action in early April in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As the medical and scientific communities grappled with ways to confront the coronavirus, the National Academy of Engineering put out the call for engineers to also contribute by crowdsourcing and brainstorming solutions.

Proposed by the NAE Grand Challenges Scholars Program students and alumni, this effort brought together members of the NAE’s Frontiers of Engineering alumni and NAE members working as mentors to students, as well as technical specialists and social entrepreneurs.

“Engineers play the key role in shaping the world on a mega scale through the unmatched forces of technology and science,” said Olin College President Richard Miller, a cofounder of the GCSP and member of the NAE Covid-19 Call to Action board. “We have the moral responsibility to take the lead and quickly focus our community on the terror of the pandemic while there is still time. The cost of not taking this initiative is absolutely incalculable.”

The effort compelled groups of engineers, despite being separated physically due to the pandemic, to work together toward addressing the pandemic’s societal and economic challenges. Teams and individuals alike were asked to contribute to a virtual workspace by proposing ideas for development and discussion. Teams were then able to form around those ideas and received expedited training as they worked toward addressing themes of the NAE Grand Challenges.

Those themes include health and medicine, sustainability and recovery, security (including healthcare worker protection), and quality of life.

Committees of Frontiers of Engineering alumni from academia, industry, and government then reviewed proposals according to the four themes. An expert review committee worked to advance the most promising proposals to local governments, industries, and stakeholders in positions to take action. The final step in the process involved a manufacturing team creating how-to-build guides for approved projects, with suggestions of methods that could facilitate the construction and delivery of devices where they are most needed.

“This cross-generational engineering call to action in response to the Covid-19 pandemic is powerful,” said NAE President John Anderson. “We hope the wide-ranging interdisciplinary engineering viewpoints the initiative brings to this crisis will have tangible impacts both for the near-term emergency and as we turn to recovery and begin planning for similar situations in the future.”