Engineering and Technology Studies at Illinois

All of the ETC lectures have been recorded on video and are available here.

A special seminar will be given by Dr. Tom Osborn of Proctor & Gamble on Tuesday, April 10, 2007, 3-4 pm, in 403B2 Engineering Hall on Views on Successful Innovation & Innovators. Dr. Osborn is one of select group of Victor Mills Research Fellows at P&G. His inventions have helped generate sales in excess of $1.5 billion dollars/years, he is holder of 122 US patents, and his work has spanned many technologies and disciplines. The seminar is sponsored by the IESE Department and the course, GE 498MTV, Creative Modeling for Technology Visionaries. A pdf file with short seminar announcement can be downloaded here.

Mark Bedau of the Philosophy Department, Reed College, and Protolife will speak on Living Technology: Scientific Prospects, Practical Applications, and Social Implications Wednesday, 12 noon, 112 Transportation Building.

ETC is pleased to announce a special surprise speaker appropriate to the date.  Larry Page, co-founder of Google will fly his Google 767 into Champaign Willard Airport and deliver an ETC address, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to a Search Engine. Further detail is available here. Other date appropriate stories are available here and here.

Ray Price will speak Wednesday, 28 March 2007 in 2405 Siebel Center at 12 noon on Technical Visionaries: Engineering Insights into Creativity and Innovation. See the lecture announcement here. I’m a big fan of this work. I believe the Tech Vision team is identifying key Tech Visionary traits and skills in a way that can and should help guide careers and modify curricula.

Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld’s talk Lateral Alignment in Complex Systems: Towards a Theory of Multi-Stakeholder Alignment in the Operation and Transformation of Complex, Engineered Systems is now available on the ETSI/ETC web site here.

Gary Downey has graciously recorded the lecture that was canceled during UIUC’s recent snow days. The talk, Are Globalization, Diversity, and Leadership Variations of the Same Problem? Moving Problem Definition to the Core is available here.

Last week’s ETC lecture, Science and Politics: Historical Perspectives and Alternative Policies by philosopher Carl Mitcham is available online on the lecture series web page (here) or by clicking the link here.

Our next ETC speaker is UIUC’s own Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, new ILIR director and Dean. His talk, Lateral Alignment in Complex Systems: Towards a Theory of Multi-Stakeholder Alignment in the Operation and Transformation of Complex, Engineered Systems, will be given 7 March 2007 in 1518 Hydrosystems Laboratory at 12 noon. More information on the talk is available on the ETC series web page (here) and in the pdf announcement (here).

Carl Mitcham, Liberal Arts and International Studies, Colorado School of Mines will speak on Science and Politics: Historical Perspectives and Alternative Policies at 2405 Siebel Center on Wednesday, 21 February at 12 noon. More info here.