Knowledge, attitude and awareness are for me the premises that guide word by word the title of this article "ENGINEERING, ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT".
Knowledge because without a doubt in this case ENGINEERING gives the knowledge, procedures and scientific, technical, technological and -because not- empirical methods to achieve materialize the "work" envisaged in the imagination, in the design and in the taste and desire of who have decided to contribute will, decision, effort and intellectual, economic and logistical resources, to see their dreams come true, or to see their needs met or to take advantage of spiritual, human or economic, individual or collective opportunities.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP is a matter of attitude and constitutes a sine qua non condition to enter individually in the adventure of realization, it feeds the occurrence, the novelty, the flow of ideas and the enthusiasm to overcome the difficulties that arise in the beginning or first step of any journey, where skepticism and general disbelief are concentrated, except on the part of those who share the passion to create. In addition, ENTREPRENEURSHIP gives the arrests or temper to face unforeseen situations, disturbances, trances and even failures, from which we must come out gracefully and strengthened.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT is the product of conscience, it is the intelligent and moral guideline through which human life must pass and which must guarantee the survival of the species and a dignified quality of life, of economic, social and productive well-being, in tune with the planet earth and the great order of the universe.
Undoubtedly, the concurrent pair of human action "Engineering and Entrepreneurship" has marked the progress of humanity, materially and spiritually. Engineering -in its meaning of "ingenuity" (from the Latin ingeniosus) and in its simplest or primitive stages- has been since the beginning of time accompanying every step of man towards first achieving his survival, his primacy among species and then your comfort and well-being. Entrepreneurship in turn has been the driving force behind all organizational decisions and approaches to new initiatives that produce satisfactions, either in the intellectual order, or in the practical and profitable.
Sustainable Development is a new concept and framework self-imposed by the society of our time (21st century) that seeks to make the alienated and absurd predatory practice of man disappear in his productive environment, on the resources at his disposal.
The issue is that never before in the history of humanity, the planet had "housed" so many people (7,000 million inhabitants) and never before has technological development reached such a level that it has empowered countries, organizations and individuals to do so. Acting blindly and unconsciously, degrading and irreversible changes can be inflicted on the "fruits of nature" at man's disposal.
The Babylonians and Egyptians established principles and built works that we still study and are greatly admired. Then it was the Greeks, the cradle of Western civilization, who made many advances in science and philosophy. They created a system of reasoning from axioms. The efficacy of this method so deeply penetrated Greek thought that the experimental method was underestimated to the degree that it was considered worthy only for slaves. Nature could be discovered only with mental abstraction. Of course, this fact - despite surprising successes in science, emotions, and structures - degenerated into stagnation in the development of true engineering. So then the authors and historians used to speak in terms of Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Eastern engineering,European, etc
Much of the engineering and technology known to the world today was developed in Europe from the late Middle Ages and later during the Industrial Revolution, in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. To corroborate this assertion, it is enough to remember when and where the technology of work and the use of wood arose and grew, the first elementary machines such as the winch and the lathe, mining technology, chemical and physical metallurgy, hydraulics, iron and steel., steam, railways, naval architecture, internal combustion engines, electricity, automobiles, heavy chemical technology, etc.
It was in England, Germany and France where the engineering profession was first set up and recognized as the person dedicated to the study and management of ingenuities, that is, machines of all kinds, to which the name of ingenínni with which the Romans had designated their great war machines (such as the ballista, the mangonel, the assault tower and the catapult) that were the most complex and powerful that they ever used. In the nineteenth century, the United States joined the great process of the Industrial Revolution and began to make substantive contributions to modern engineering and technology, as happened in the textile industry, machines, tools, weapons, steel bridges, large buildings, aviation and other fields.Throughout this period, engineering - which in 18th century Europe was conceived only as civil engineering as opposed to military engineering - was spreading in ever more numerous specialties and applications.
Subsequently, schools, universities and institutions that prepared and offered field of application to railway engineers, mechanical engineers, mining engineers, naval engineers, industrial engineers, electrical engineers, chemical engineers, etc., appeared, and modern engineering and technology appeared in America Latin America, not as a result of an endogenous process of indigenous production, linked to an indigenous development of forms of production (as was the case in Europe and the United States), but as a component implicitly contained in foreign inventions that are They were incorporating into the life of our countries in their difficult and slow development to integrate into the world economy and to expand their economic activity,many times without context or without any control of its potential harmful effects.
The teaching and practice of engineering emerged as an internal requirement to be able to apply the global technology that was imported. This was the case in Colombia, where although civil engineering appeared with the Corographic Commission, it was later consolidated with the process of railroad construction during the last third of the 19th century. In later times, other technology incorporation processes were affirming engineering and opening up new fields of practice and new specialties. Such was the effect of the development of steam-powered river navigation, the electrification of cities, industrialization, the introduction of radiocommunications and radio broadcasting, the spread of motor vehicles, the development of oil, the construction of Public Works.Engineering as a teaching and as an exercise has expanded in our country at the same rate that we have absorbed modern technology that comes from the great production centers of the rest of the world: first from Europe, after the United States, Japan and currently also until from China. This is a huge flaw that means that our machines and equipment are often oversized, resulting in inefficient use of them. Likewise, such teams are capable of exceeding the guidelines or restrictions of application in our latitudes, with which there are excesses in their performance in the face of the environment and more inefficiencies.after the United States, Japan and now even China. This is a huge flaw that makes our machines and equipment many times oversized, resulting in inefficient use of them. Likewise, such teams are capable of exceeding the guidelines or restrictions of application in our latitudes, with which there are excesses in their performance against the environment and more inefficiencies.after the United States, Japan and now even China. This is a huge flaw that means that our machines and equipment are often oversized, resulting in inefficient use of them. Likewise, such teams are capable of exceeding the guidelines or restrictions of application in our latitudes, with which there are excesses in their performance in the face of the environment and more inefficiencies.with which there are excesses in their performance against the environment and more inefficiencies.with which there are excesses in their performance against the environment and more inefficiencies.
Historically, the application of physical-mathematical sciences gave form and life to engineering, which is born from real life problems. Engineering is often related to "ingenuity" and "inventiveness", because precisely its semantics is derived from there. The discovery or mastery of fire and its control must have been the best test of ingenuity and inventiveness in the early days of humanity.
Already at the end of the 18th century - thanks to Count Rumford's contribution - engineering was known as "the application of science to the common purposes of life", which in my opinion says it all and today it may prevail as a concept. if we do not want to get into complications or rhetorical and semantic abundance.
Entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity are very present in today's societies and business environments, and are considered as instruments to advance competitiveness and improve the economy.
Now, entrepreneurs can play an essential role in innovation, since it is known that an important part of innovations does not arise in the Research and Development (R&D) departments of large companies, nor in universities and their laboratories, but of people who with that special nose for the market identify ideas and connect them with new innovative business opportunities.
There is a strong link between these two concepts, so it is common for them to be mentioned together, although they are different things. While entrepreneurship refers to the action by which new businesses are started, innovation is the implementation of significant novelties or improvements.
Thus, an enterprise does not necessarily entail an innovation (when, for example, a company is created that will do the same as another already constituted), in the same way that an innovation does not necessarily require an enterprise to be implemented (when, for example, it is implements an improvement in an existing company). A special case in this section is the so-called "Intrapreneur", equally valuable for the organization and society, even without becoming a business owner or entrepreneur.
When both processes come together, creating a new business based on innovation, we speak of innovative entrepreneurship.
We live in a society that favors consumerism. We have become the throwaway generation. Advertising bombards us with advertisements whose goal is not our well-being. Unfortunately, in the collective unconscious a vision of the relationships between man and nature is firmly established that leads us to think that civilized man is outside nature and that therefore its laws do not affect us, that the success of humanity is based on the control and dominance of nature, that the Earth has an unlimited amount of resources at the disposal of humans.
This type of approach to the "use" of the resources we need is so ingrained that it has led us unfailingly to levels of pollution, inequality, disease, poverty and injustice, among other shortcomings of our present. Its economic model of production and consumption tends more and more to its exhaustion. It is unthinkable to face the ecological and social problems that affect us without stopping the complicated machinery and structure that produce them.
The world is facing many serious challenges today even though encouraging progress has been made in economics and elsewhere. The environment continues to deteriorate, man-made natural disasters are more frequent, some uses of natural resources are approaching tipping points, and the gap between rich and poor, between developed and developing nations, continues to widen. All these factors constitute a serious threat to global prosperity, security and stability and to sustainable development.
A limited planet CANNOT indefinitely supply the resources that this type of exploitation and standard of living demands. For this reason, we must urgently begin to understand, self-incorporate and SPREAD the idea that it is necessary to transform the old criteria, paradigms and structures of thought, turning them towards real development that allows the improvement of living conditions but, at the same time at the same time, it is compatible with a rational exploitation of the planet that takes care of the environment. This is what we call Sustainable Development or Sustainable Development.
Sustainable development is the term that is given to the balance of the planet's management in three environmental, social and economic spheres. Taking into account that no renewable resource should be used at a rate higher than its generation, no pollutant should be produced at a rate higher than that which can be recycled, neutralized or absorbed by the environment, no non-renewable resource should be used faster than necessary to replace it with a renewable resource used in a sustainable way.
Sustainable development emphasizes that we must plan our activities "within" a natural system that has its own laws, which must be respected and use resources without disrupting the basic mechanisms of the functioning of nature. By a reverse analysis we could come to accompany the expression:
Hence, education, guideline and example are fundamental pillars so that our society can achieve prosperity, well-being and peace, and therefore our leaders and leaders, the government and the state itself and the organized community, are responsible for social commitment and policy both to guarantee employment for the entire population, respect for their human rights, democracy, gender equality, health, education, housing and public services, as well as maintaining an adequate productive management of natural resources, strictly respecting the recharge capacities of ecosystems and ecological balances. That is why public policies, development plans, community work and the rule of law must limit the particular initiatives of public and private activities,safeguarding the present and generations to come.
I see with enormous satisfaction and hope that fortunately the idea of sustainability has flooded the academic environments and has transcended the political and social sphere, renewing the concern for the natural environment, biodiversity and ecological balance on a planetary level, seeking forms of urbanization, production, consumption, etc. that ensure the maintenance of well-being for future generations.
Perhaps from these debates, contributions and reflections the "wild conscience" of the Indian chief Seattle of the Suwamish tribe may emerge, in his 1855 letter-response to the President of the United States Franklin Pierce, on the offer to purchase his lands, in what is now Washington State. It is considered the most beautiful and profound statement ever made about the environment.
The equation Engineering and Entrepreneurship as a function of Sustainable Development, ie Engineering + Entrepreneurship = f (Sustainable Development), contains in itself the power and the crux of solving for current generations and future generations the dilemma of resource exploitation versus quality of life.
We need to promote the generation of human and institutional capacities. Curricular and pedagogical reform of engineering education and continuous professional development are needed to encompass social and ethical concerns, and of special importance are educational and outreach programs, publicizing examples of sustainable actions, promoting public statements and political commitments and develop programs that aim to promote this type of development.
The first step is essential, and then before demanding changes and measures from governments and corporations, we must make the change within our closest sphere of action. It is in ourselves, in our homes, workplaces, in our neighborhoods and communities, and in our hearts that the true change of thought, paradigm, mental structure, action and behavior must begin to take place.
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