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Innovation and Integration in the Changing Global Higher Education Landscape
I’m delighted that mechanicians now have this platform to discuss our work as well as share ideas and perspectives. While we advance knowledge in our field and come up with innovative solutions for engineering and materials problems, I believe that we also have a responsibility to speak on issues of global significance, especially where the power of science and technology can be harnessed to address challenges and issues impacting the world.
It is in this spirit that I’d like to share some perspectives from Singapore – “a tiny red dot” at the intersection of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea – on higher education in a world at a crossroad.
The technology revolution is flattening and shrinking the world, intensifying congestion, competition and conflict. At the same time, the evolution of our social and cultural DNA has not kept pace with the realities of accelerating technological change.
These reflections on the need for education to innovate and integrate a socio-cultural dimension were delivered in a speech at the Public Services Summit@Nobel Week hosted by Cisco Systems and the City of Stockholm in December 2006.
| Attachment | Size |
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 nobelweek2007.pdf | 1.66 MB |
- SHIH Choon Fong's blog
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Spaceship Earth and Mothership Internet
Dear Fong:
This is a great speech! The tiny red dot, Singapore, has magnified a global issue: the shrinking world. I quote from your speech:
"All of us are in one and the same spaceship – Spaceship Earth. We may be traveling in different cabins. Some want to stay in first class while others are trying to move up into first class. But we are so intent on scrambling to get into first class cabins that Spaceship Earth is on auto-pilot. We seem unaware that we are all heading towards a common destiny. On our current trajectory, Spaceship Earth is zooming straight for the burning sun."
Your vision of The Global University resonates with the vision of iMechanica:
While we may love to decipher the impact factor of this or that journal, and the ranking of this or that university, we will all one day look up from the little islands of universities and journals and see this giant mothership hovering above us: it is called the Internet.
I wish our president had 10% of your global vision. And I do not mean the president of my university.
who follows who
Technology serves human being, or we change to follow the development of technology in order to survive.
Samuel Huntington versus Amartya Sen, we have to choose the second.
This is an interesting topic; however beyong the domain of iMechanica.
Technology-accelerated socio-cultural change
Dear Prof. Shih,
Really enjoyed this thought-provoking speech! Thanks for sharing your vision with our fellow iMechanicians.
While the rapid renovation of technology leaves the evolution of culture far behind, it becomes more and more desirable to exploit the technology to stimulate and accelerate the pace of socio-cultural change. The Internet is playing a vital role in this process. While the first generation Internet services (Web 1.0) are about linking information available online, Web 2.0 emphasizes online collaboration and sharing among people. Together with other wonderful ideas from technocrats, such as the $100 laptop, we expect more and more global citizens educated in this flattening and shrinking world.
-Teng
The future is upon us
Reading Fong's speech once again this evening, I recalled a remarkable document commissioned by ASME, titled "Six Strategic Issues Shaping Global Future of Mechanical Engineering". Instead of summarizing the document here, I'll just point to a blog entry that I wrote a while back, which also directs you to the document itself. The future is upon us, whichever way we look at it. We may as well be opportunistic, and effect desirable outcomes.
Intel will build a new fab in China
Intel will build a $2.5 billion ship-manufacturing plant in Shanghai. The news has been online "unofficially" for past weeks, and is now in Today's New York Times.
Back in late January 2007, Texas Instruments announced that it would extend outsourcing model and stop creating some of its core technologies. The news initiated a thread of discussion among iMechanicians.
In the ASME document pointed out above, it was suggested that, when the manufacturing base is shifted elsewhere, soon the research centers will follow. The development at TI has confirmed this suggestion. It would be interesting to watch how the story of Intel will play out in the coming decade.
Mechanics of small structures is an area of active research among mechanicians. High Tech manufacturing is a central part of Singapore's success. The story of Intel, and the larger story of globalization, will influence us all.
Whitesides' view on the impact of globalization on education
In the thread of discussion about TI's outsourcing, a link to an essay by George Whitesides at Harvard on the impact of globalization on undergraduate education was given in my comment there.
Intel's new fab will be in Dalian
The site for Intel's new fab will be in the northern coast town of Dalian. Intel currently has packaging sites in Shanghai and Chengdu. Dalian will be Intel's first Si factory in Asia, designated Fab 68, using the 2 numbers which are popular in Chinese culture.
90 nm Intel fab in Dalian
Jun,
Fab 68 in Dalian will be a 90nm factory. I'm wondering how many 65nm Intel fabs are in full production. What about 45nm fabs?
-Teng
Intel's 65nm and 45nm fabs
Teng,
Intel's is currently developing its 45nm process on 300mm wafers in Hillsboro, Oregon, in D1D. Two new 300mm fabs are being built for the coming 45nm ramp: Fab 32 in Ocotillo, Arizona (production due to start in the second half of 2007) and Fab 28 in Israel (production to start in the first half of 2008).In addition to D1D, the 65nm process is manufactured on 300mm wafers in Fab 12 in Arizona and Fab 24-2 in Ireland.
Intel fabs
From what I understand this fab is about 1 billion cheaper than in the US which is a lot of money. 2.5 billion is very inexpensive for a fab. There are a lot of products that do not need super small technologies, such as memory business. This seems like a good business startegy for Intel. The only question is if there are enough experience fab engineers. Most of the new chinese fabs were ramped up by ex-pat.
Ting
global university
The global education landscape, the same idea appears in Yochai Benkler's book:
The Wealth of Networks, How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom.
It is so true that we have not only two basic free transactional forms—property-based markets and hierarchically organized firms. We have three, and the third is social sharing and exchange.
So is the concept of global university, whose time has come.