5 Takeaways from the ASEE Industry 4.0 Summit

Today I gave a report out to the Global Engineering Deans Council network on the ASEE Corporate Member Council event held two weeks ago in Washington D.C. The Industry 4.0 Workforce Summit convened leaders from academia, industry and policy to accelerate innovation in how we prepare the next generation of engineers and skilled technical workers. We came together as separate but integrated stakeholders to develop an action plan to meet the needs of Industry 4.0 and beyond.

My co-chair Dan Sayre and I share these five key themes as takeaways to move forward.

University as a Service (UaaS)

For those of us in the technology sector, the transformation to Software as a Service (SaaS) has driven new approaches in who, what and how we serve the market.

At the summit, there were several threads on this theme. JB Holston of the Greater Washington Partnership mentioned UaaS as he spoke on a panel on Leveraging New Partnerships and Work/Learn Pathways. He referenced models outside traditional higher ed like Guild as well as regional/adjacent models like he led at the Greater Washington Partnership. More on that shortly.

Siemens USA CEO Barbara Humpton spoke about the power of growth mindset for digital transformation and made us consider how we might become lifelong students of universities through a membership model.

Greg Washington, president of George Mason University, spoke about the unprecedented change driving academia and the world and emphasized “the (financial) model has to change,” citing this chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics with college tuition, fees and textbooks sandwiched up top b/w hospital services and childcare.

He referenced The Great Upheaval, noting that as the U.S transitions from a national, analog, industrial economy to a global, digital, knowledge economy – coupled with unprecedented grand challenges – exacerbated by a pandemic – universities will be transformed dramatically in the aftermath.

Here’s an interesting Medium read on UAAS: future of higher education and the great unbundling published early on in the pandemic.?

Diversity is the challenge and the solution

University of the District of Columbia President Ronald Mason emphasized the talent shortage, stating the Bureau of Labor Statistics figure that by 2026 the U.S. will have a shortage of 1.2M engineers. He showed the unequal distribution of wealth based on race – noting whites are 60% of the population but make up 77% of the workforce and blacks are 13% of the population but make up 25% of households with zero wealth or less. To address the talent crisis, we have to address the access to opportunity allocated through socioeconomics and develop plans to double the number of women, blacks and Hispanics pursuing engineering. He used the analogy that your can’t just take care of the wounded, we have to address what’s causing the underlying wound. See more in what UDC is doing in The Equity Imperative – Strategic Plan.

In a panel on Leveraging new Partnerships and Work/Learn Pathways for Workforce Development, Jason Tyszko, vice president of the Center for Education and Workforce, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, emphasized talent as a competitive differentiator. He encouraged us to look at and scale proven talent supply frameworks like COC has done in some regions like western Michigan to address utility talent skills gap. Learn more about their Talent Pipeline Management framework. We learned about additional funding resources to tap into, like the National Science Foundation’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) that “seeks to support projects that have high potential for broader societal impacts, including improved diversity of students and instructors participating in STEM education”. IUSE is one of a ton of Broadening Participation programs. For more from Jason, see his more detailed presentation in our March webinar.

Celeste Carter, Lead Program Director of the NSF's Advanced Technological Education program, emphasized how the ATE program focused on community colleges is engaging diverse students in technical fields.?See more from Celeste in our previous webinar on Community Colleges and ATE Programs Addressing Workforce for Industry 4.0.

One key goal of this workforce summit was to find paths to make the education of engineering professionals less exclusive and expensive and more efficiently quip learners with 21st century knowledge, skills and abilities. The dialog leading up to and crystallized at the event showed great strides but in small silos. The challenge is visibility and funding/energizing to scale.

Democratize engineering

This has been the mantra of Don Millard, acting deputy assistant director of the Engineering Directorate (ENG) at NSF. He framed education as an industry that is ripe for organizational change and disruption to go from a 1: many to many:1 model.

Don spoke to successful Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) proposals/awards that design/deliver “revolutionary new approaches to engineering education, from changing the canon of engineering to fundamentally altering the way courses are structured to creating new departmental structures and educational collaborations with industry." A common thread across these projects is a focus on organizational and cultural change within the departments, involving students, faculty, staff, and industry in rethinking what it means to provide an engineering program.” Criteria notes these should be sustainable, scalable and adaptable through an active propagation roadmap. Key in these programs is personalized learning – what Don emphasized as Engineering 4.0’s challenge.

In a panel on Academic & Industrial Collaboration to Prepare the Engineering and Technical Workforce, Lee Lambert, chancellor of Pima Community College emphasized four superpowers on the digital curve and shared how Pima is addressing the transition for lifelong learning (or should we say UaaS).

The PimaFastTrack is for adult learners to get industry-recognized skills in fields like industrial technology, information technology, and automotive technology. These programs can be tailored to specific employer needs. Lee spoke about programs with Caterpillar and one with TuSimple for autonomous vehicle driver and operations specialists. These applied and interdisciplinary technology programs can address key skills gaps and emerging trends in real-time.

In a panel on the Quality of Engineering and Technical Workforce: Role of Funding Agencies and Influencers in Improving and Enhancing Education and Training Programs, Coursera’s Skills Transformation Advisor Juliana Guaqueta pointed to findings in their Campus Skills report. While the emerging jobs learners are most interested in are data scientist, data analyst, software engineer, and machine learning engineer, the research showed most are underprepared. There is an interesting breakdown by country that also shows the percent of learners by gender - 50% female in the U.S. Juliana emphasized human core skills key to enable students to adapt to change and disruption since 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 have yet to be invented.

Adjacencies are key

This event brought visibility to key examples of aligning the right adjacent partners to scale and drive success. Roger Tadajewski, executive director of the National Coalition of Certification Centers (NC3) showed a student engagement pathway to develop highly-skilled, job-ready professionals through programs and certifications across industries. I like NC3’s tagline: “we are a network of doers.”

University of Maryland President Daryll Pines discussed an intriguing regional model. To address the region’s talent shortfall of 65,000 (and that was before Amazon moved to town and needs another 20,000), the Greater Washington Partnership brought together academia and industry to develop the Capital CoLab. This collaboration led to the Digital Tech credential that addresses: the role of data and analytics, probability and descriptive and inferential statistics, data manipulation, visualization and communication, ethics and security. Daryll emphasized the opportunity to seed digital literacy in adjacencies, such as ensuring those in adjacent fields to engineering – like politics and government.?

Mentors are critical

Relationships are the key to changing systems and cultures. Mentors are needed in all directions. It’s where the conversation is headed with the human-centric focus of Industry 5.0. The lighthouse examples were programs that emphasized the KSAs in human connection.

Lee Lambert talked about the importance of a mentor in his life and how that guidance through a lived experience was critical vs. just focusing on skill development.

Martin Guay, vice president of business development for Stanley Black & Decker talked about the need for mentors and conveners in a future ecosystem will be self-forming not hierarchical. Their company needs to upskill 30,000 of 55,000 over the next 10 years. He emphasized you don’t learn to swim or ride a bike from a book – we learn from experience and each other. With people are the backbone of the economy, we must improve each other’s digital literacy and fluency.

Ken Ball, dean of engineering at George Mason University, noted Education 4.0 needing industry mentors for faculty. Chris Carlson, head of university relations at Northrop Grumman spoke about mentoring as key to increasing the number and diversity of future engineers, noting the great model his company supports in the NSBE SEEK summer engineering program.

In Summary

To democratize engineering, we need to embrace the disruption and innovate in who, what and how we serve. It’s clear we need stronger intermediators that can help stakeholders align outcomes, approaches and funding.?Here is an opportunity for societies and associations – to synthesize and bring visibility to transformations others can adopt at speed.

So what’s next? There is more to share from the breakout workshops that appear to have developed several working groups to keep momentum on key pillars. ASEE plays a key role in providing the path forward. The past two years on this effort provided opportunities to listen and learn and engage. Academic participants now want a roadmap with practical templates, databases, and guidance on knowledge-skills length/timing.

More will soon be posted to https://workforcesummit.asee.org/.?A synthesis of working group action plans and a post-event publication are forthcoming

p.s. This work began with a survey of fresh graduates to understand what KSAs they say they were most and least prepared for. If you haven't seen the research check it out to keep their voice and feedback front and center as we develop paths forward.

p.p.s. One of the questions in the webinar today was to share one thing we are doing to adapt to these needs. I referenced our online learning initiative with modular curricula content. One new project is the Siemens Sustainability Network that brings students, educators and our customers together to develop curriculum that embeds sustainability in engineering education. More to come, but in the meantime, see the latest we provide on our Curriculum Hub.