National Academy of Engineering Announces Engineering Call to Action on COVID-19

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has recently announced a Call to Action for engineers to submit potential solutions to problems arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. The current pandemic has presented a unique set of social, technical, medical, and economic challenges, many of which engineers are uniquely equipped to address. The Call to Action is being driven by NAE Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP) students and alumni, and NEA Frontiers of Engineering (FOE) alumni and NAE members at large are participating as becoming involved through  mentoring GCSP students or others to develop ideas submitted through the Call to Action.

NAE President John L. Anderson has stated, “This cross-generational engineering Call to Action in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is powerful. 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.”

The NAE is dubbing this effort a “virtual incubator of ideas” that will address some of the country’s top concerns such as supply chain challenges, disruption of life and work, and technology advancement and integration. Individuals and teams can respond to the Call to Action and will be trained to address issues with support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored I-Corps Innovation Node Los Angeles.<

Engineers are being asked to focus the general themes of the NAE Grand Challenges:

• Health and Medicine: medical technologies, medical supply production, physical and mental health, tools for the elderly, reusable medical materials
• Sustainability and Recovery: economic recovery, social and political recovery
• Security: resource allocation, dissemination of accurate information, AI, health care worker protection
• Quality of Life: work under self-isolation, new means of collaboration

To learn more about this initiative please visit: https://www.nae.edu/230259/HERES-HOW-IT-WORKS.