Finding purpose in an engineer’s world

It’s a lovely evening walk in mid-May while snaking through the smaller streets of inner-city Tokyo. Its surprisingly quiet considering we are minutes away from the hustle and bustle of Akihabara district, our intended destination. The path suddenly opens onto a small residential courtyard and a Shinto shrine. Nestled in a beautifully kept Japanese garden and gentle moving water, you are immediately drawn to nature where life is not hard and unyielding concrete but temporal and adaptable. To a spiritual space where things are intangible and immeasurable. ??Set against the backdrop of modern building blocks the shrine and garden struck me as a symbol of our human nature to find a purpose that is bigger than us but that we are a part of. While searching for the divine will be disputed so long as the human race exists, few will dispute if we should have a purpose beyond ourselves.?

?Indeed, this is what can fuel cooperation, creates community cohesion and drives (some of) us to leave legacies. For an engineer, such a wider purpose can have a significant impact on society, think Brunel and Stephenson who revolutionized the railway system, think Sakichi Toyoda’s drive to bring benefit to society that lead to a seismic shift in manufacturing processes and quality control.

?

I am currently embarking on a research project across Japan, USA and UK to take lessons from the education system in Japan, visiting beautiful Kanazawa and bustling Tokyo with focus on embedding ethics and citizenship into our engineering curriculum. I also plan to take lessons on how liberal arts and social entrepreneurship are developed in the US with the aim of applying these lessons to our teaching frameworks that aims to equip engineering graduates with wider skills required for working towards innovation that is both equitable and sustainable.

?

My deepest thanks to the Sir Winston Memorial Trust for supporting and funding this project. It’s my honour to be working with Professor Kenichi Natsumi, Professor Fumihiko Tochinai and Dr Ken-ichi Hara from Kanazawa Institute of Technology and Dr Shinya Takehara from National Institute of Technology Nara and Toyohashi Institute of Technology).

?

I will be posting thought pieces on my reflections throughout the project and trip and invite my colleagues, friends and peers for their thoughts and insights.

?

I look forward to engaging with you...

Sarah Junaid

Churchill Fellow

NOTE: any reflections and comments are the opinion of the writer alone and are not necessarily shared by associated institutions or collaborators.

?

#sirwinstonchurchillmemorialtrust

#engineeringethicseducatoin

#engineeringethics

#highereducation

#engineeringforsociety

#engineeringcitizenship