Dean Yannis Yortsos

Reflections Upon Time:

Technological Advancement Accelerates the Pace of Change; Engineering Helps Solve Global Challenges

Traditionally, the beginning of a new decade marks the occasion to reflect upon the past 10 years and look ahead to the next 10, but that’s a custom from much slower-moving times.

Instead, I’d like to stop and reflect upon the fundamental change in what we now expect from a decade. An achievement which might once have been celebrated as outstanding following 10 years of hard work — in today’s era may barely be considered worthy of mention after two years of effort.

In other words, events of significance now grow and decay within a much shorter period of time. Ten years used to be a characteristic measuring scale; that no longer holds true. Indeed, the concept of a linear relationship with time is becoming less and less relevant in the 21st century. Events evolve non-linearly, and often exponentially in the 21st century.

Why? A major driver is the ever-accelerating growth of technological change. That’s one concept presented brilliantly by the noted computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near. Moore’s law — the observation that the capacity of semiconductors doubles roughly every two years — also reflects the rapid pace of change.

As we enter the decade of the 2010’s, we at the Viterbi School are acutely aware that work on the substantial new challenges facing our world needs to happen at that accelerated pace. What are these challenges? The National Academy of Engineering categorized their top priorities into four broad categories: Sustainability, Vulnerability, Health, and the Joy of Living. Our global problems require a solution that interweaves technology, innovation and public policy.

As engineers, we have a crucial role to play in answering NAE’s societal call to action. In that vein, we organized last year the first-ever Summit on the NAE Grand Challenges in collaboration with the Olin College of Engineering and Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, which hosted the conference. In the spring, a series of followup meetings will take place on university campuses across the country. And in the fall of 2010, we will host at the USC campus the sequel to that first summit. This will bring to campus policymakers, corporate leaders and renowned academics to discuss solutions that are real, implementable, and game-changing.\

And speaking of time: I’d like to speak about a man whose accomplishments are noteworthy whether measured in years or decades. In the nearly 20 years that Steven B. Sample has served as president of USC, he has helped elevate our institution to the level of the world’s truly elite universities. That’s a trajectory with true power-law growth in quality, quantity and reputation! He is an engineer equally at ease in the arenas of public policy, art, the humanities, social sciences and the health sciences. In short, he exemplifies what we call Engineering+. For his outstanding accomplishments, we will honor Steve at the 2010 Viterbi Awards.

Yannis C. Yortsos
Dean