Full Transcript for “Addressing the Engineering Talent Gap Using a Local-First Workforce” with Chandrakant Patel

that was growing up as a child. And when I got 00:01:57.959 --> 00:02:00.120 an opportunity to come to the United States as 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:02.879 an immigrant, I had finished my high school in 00:02:02.879 --> 00:02:06.519 India. I was 18 years old. And I came as an immigrant 00:02:06.519 --> 00:02:10.199 to the United States. Coming as an immigrant, 00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:13.539 I didn't come with any money. In fact, all I 00:02:13.539 --> 00:02:15.939 had was $20 when I arrived in San Francisco. 00:02:16.419 --> 00:02:18.780 And I was going to go to my sister's place in 00:02:18.780 --> 00:02:22.620 Oregon. And I would end up going to Oregon. And 00:02:22.620 --> 00:02:25.500 in order to... pursue my engineering degree, 00:02:25.620 --> 00:02:28.039 I decided to work and I found a job in a lumber 00:02:28.039 --> 00:02:30.840 mill, such a wood mulching mill in southern Oregon, 00:02:30.919 --> 00:02:33.280 in a city called White City, Oregon, in southern 00:02:33.280 --> 00:02:37.340 Oregon. I saved enough money, moved to San Francisco, 00:02:37.879 --> 00:02:40.979 lived in a low, I wouldn't call it Skid Row, 00:02:41.020 --> 00:02:45.340 I'll call it like a low income hotel for $150 00:02:45.340 --> 00:02:51.229 a month. Quite coincidentally, one day I was 00:02:51.229 --> 00:02:54.210 at Third and Mission in San Francisco and a bus 00:02:54.210 --> 00:02:57.449 came by and it said 12 City College. I said, 00:02:57.469 --> 00:02:59.610 let me go to City College. I go there and I found 00:02:59.610 --> 00:03:01.770 out that City College is a community college 00:03:01.770 --> 00:03:07.270 and that if I did two years of coursework, the 00:03:07.270 --> 00:03:09.430 first two years of coursework, then I should 00:03:09.430 --> 00:03:12.169 be able to transfer to year three and four at 00:03:12.169 --> 00:03:14.389 University of California Berkeley, which is where 00:03:14.389 --> 00:03:17.889 I wanted to go. So that's what I did. I went to 00:03:17.889 --> 00:03:21.509 City College of San Francisco, did the first 00:03:21.509 --> 00:03:23.849 two years, transferred to Berkeley, finished 00:03:23.849 --> 00:03:26.889 my undergrad. And then the journey started in 00:03:26.889 --> 00:03:30.969 Silicon Valley in earnest with lots of excitement. 00:03:31.349 --> 00:03:33.849 So that is basically in a nutshell. And what 00:03:33.849 --> 00:03:37.229 was interesting was that I didn't get any loan. 00:03:37.270 --> 00:03:40.169 I didn't get any grants. I was able to work on 00:03:40.169 --> 00:03:43.110 weekends. And because my high school preparation 00:03:43.110 --> 00:03:46.090 was so good, I was able to work and put myself 00:03:46.090 --> 00:03:48.629 to school. And in four years, I was able to finish 00:03:48.629 --> 00:03:52.530 the undergrad. So that told me that the community 00:03:52.530 --> 00:03:54.770 college system in the United States is extremely 00:03:54.770 --> 00:04:00.949 powerful. And I'm very thankful for that. So 00:04:00.949 --> 00:04:04.370 over your career at HP, you've seen the emergence 00:04:04.370 --> 00:04:07.770 of Silicon Valley from its early days of innovation 00:04:07.770 --> 00:04:10.650 and tinkering in backyards, garages, things like 00:04:10.650 --> 00:04:14.129 this, to the behemoth companies that we see today. 00:04:14.579 --> 00:04:17.699 And what do you think about the way the workforce 00:04:17.699 --> 00:04:20.579 recruiting in Silicon Valley has changed? And 00:04:20.579 --> 00:04:22.980 are there ways in which we can improve that pathway? 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:24.480 What do you see as some of the challenges? I 00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:26.259 want to keep this sort of very open so we can 00:04:26.259 --> 00:04:29.879 get your open thoughts about this. That's a superb 00:04:29.879 --> 00:04:32.120 question, Lester. And it's very important to 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:35.600 look at our history. I spent 37 plus years at 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:38.180 HP. But before I came to HP, I was at a company 00:04:38.180 --> 00:04:41.639 called Memorex. Is it live or is it Memorex? 00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:44.399 It was Ella Fitzgerald sang and the wine glass 00:04:44.399 --> 00:04:46.639 broke. And we knew why the wine glass broke. 00:04:46.639 --> 00:04:51.620 It was that company. And we made the first hard 00:04:51.620 --> 00:04:53.899 disk drives at Memorex, at Centomass and Central 00:04:53.899 --> 00:04:56.800 Expressway, the location where NVIDIA is now 00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:00.459 located. Design was done locally on a drafting 00:05:00.459 --> 00:05:05.040 table, subsequently CAD arrived. Manufacturing 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:07.819 was done locally. Everything was vertically integrated. 00:05:08.779 --> 00:05:12.629 We went from end -to -end, vertically. In order 00:05:12.629 --> 00:05:16.610 to do that, people were trained and hired locally. 00:05:16.889 --> 00:05:19.129 There were technicians, there were apprenticeship 00:05:19.129 --> 00:05:22.529 programs. All these community colleges became 00:05:22.529 --> 00:05:26.589 a feeder. And the same was true for chip fabrication. 00:05:27.709 --> 00:05:30.069 Chips were designed and fabricated in the United 00:05:30.069 --> 00:05:32.889 States. In general, it was true that most industries 00:05:32.889 --> 00:05:35.509 were vertically integrated physically. The systems 00:05:35.509 --> 00:05:39.110 had sourced parts in the United States and built 00:05:39.110 --> 00:05:42.550 them. And that was what I would say, still machine 00:05:42.550 --> 00:05:44.750 age and we were transitioning towards the cyber 00:05:44.750 --> 00:05:50.149 age. Then what happened is we entered, I think 00:05:50.149 --> 00:05:52.930 Silicon Valley entered the cyber age. It left 00:05:52.930 --> 00:05:55.970 the age of hardware tinkering. Remember I said 00:05:55.970 --> 00:05:57.910 when I was a child growing up, I thought America 00:05:57.910 --> 00:06:00.529 was a land of tinkerers. When I started in Silicon

00:06:00.529 --> 00:06:04.470 Valley, I found myself subsequently at HP with 00:06:04.470 --> 00:06:07.500 Bill Hewlett. And all these guys, and I thought 00:06:07.500 --> 00:06:10.540 of them as tinkerers. I was in a valley of tinkerers, 00:06:10.579 --> 00:06:13.019 because everything was physically hands -on done 00:06:13.019 --> 00:06:16.019 locally. Then as we moved into cyber age, the 00:06:16.019 --> 00:06:18.779 valley moved more into above the abstraction 00:06:18.779 --> 00:06:21.220 layer. With the rise of internet, the latter 00:06:21.220 --> 00:06:23.959 part of the 20th century saw innovation above 00:06:23.959 --> 00:06:27.180 the internet. And the focus more became e -commerce, 00:06:27.519 --> 00:06:30.939 social media, lots of innovation, very interesting 00:06:30.939 --> 00:06:34.939 innovation. that would start at the computer 00:06:34.939 --> 00:06:38.459 screen level and then at the phone level. So 00:06:38.459 --> 00:06:41.680 there was a lot of software innovation. The physical 00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:44.519 side started to get outsourced and pretty soon 00:06:44.519 --> 00:06:48.120 most of the physical side was done outside. I 00:06:48.120 --> 00:06:51.379 saw a change in pattern of how we hired. Because 00:06:51.379 --> 00:06:53.480 large number of people were needed, a lot of 00:06:53.480 --> 00:06:56.399 the companies found an easier path from sources 00:06:56.399 --> 00:07:00.959 which had engineers in large numbers and we saw 00:07:00.959 --> 00:07:05.279 importation of labor for software work. And then 00:07:05.279 --> 00:07:06.860 because there was not much physical work there 00:07:06.860 --> 00:07:09.939 was not a lot of effort I felt going into using 00:07:09.939 --> 00:07:12.860 the network of community colleges. So the cyber 00:07:12.860 --> 00:07:17.279 age was a go -go age and I call it as was even 00:07:17.279 --> 00:07:19.519 though we think we are in it right now I call 00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:23.040 it a was a go -go age of economic growth but 00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:26.439 it is one that left a lot of the local communities 00:07:26.439 --> 00:07:29.860 out of the economic growth. And what saddened 00:07:29.860 --> 00:07:32.579 me was there was a dichotomy where you could 00:07:32.579 --> 00:07:34.240 see there were people who made a lot of money 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:37.779 and then the ordinary people were left out. But 00:07:37.779 --> 00:07:41.220 I'm very optimistic about the future of, and 00:07:41.220 --> 00:07:43.379 we can get to that more in a bit. So I just want 00:07:43.379 --> 00:07:46.660 to talk about the early age, which was this machine 00:07:46.660 --> 00:07:49.860 age going into cyber. Then the second part was 00:07:49.860 --> 00:07:52.829 the cyber age. which was largely about the internet, 00:07:53.230 --> 00:07:56.730 software, e -commerce, social media, mostly value 00:07:56.730 --> 00:07:59.449 -add at the software level. We are leaving that 00:07:59.449 --> 00:08:02.850 behind and

entering a new age that I would love 00:08:02.850 --> 00:08:07.970 to discuss and suggest. And I'm really excited 00:08:07.970 --> 00:08:11.050 about it because it's an opportunity to bring 00:08:11.050 --> 00:08:13.810 people back into the fold. And I have a lot of 00:08:13.810 --> 00:08:16.550 experience in doing that from my early days when 00:08:16.550 --> 00:08:18.949 we used to train and hire locally. You know, 00:08:18.949 --> 00:08:22.029 I think large companies like your own HP can 00:08:22.029 --> 00:08:26.029 be spoiled because they have recruiting footprints 00:08:26.029 --> 00:08:29.110 that extend worldwide, right? HP can plausibly 00:08:29.110 --> 00:08:30.730 go to any university in the world and say, you 00:08:30.730 --> 00:08:33.730 know, you're a top engineering student, come 00:08:33.730 --> 00:08:35.490 to Silicon Valley, work for HP, will get me a 00:08:35.490 --> 00:08:37.809 great salary, great opportunities to work at 00:08:37.809 --> 00:08:39.950 the cutting edge of technology. And so can you 00:08:39.950 --> 00:08:41.750 say a little bit more about the importance of 00:08:41.750 --> 00:08:44.850 local hiring, even in this context where talent 00:08:44.850 --> 00:08:48.019 is globally distributed? Yeah, first, you know, 00:08:48.019 --> 00:08:50.620 I'm not at HP anymore. I'm retired, but I have 00:08:50.620 --> 00:08:52.879 seen not only HP but other companies, but largely 00:08:52.879 --> 00:08:54.779 the software companies have gone all over the 00:08:54.779 --> 00:08:58.700 world to recruit. I think, and that was fine 00:08:58.700 --> 00:09:00.480 in the cyber age. They could get away with it. 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:02.379 In the cyber physical age, they have to recruit 00:09:02.379 --> 00:09:04.700 locally because of the solutions they're building. 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:08.100 So I think the way to do is to use the playbook 00:09:08.100 --> 00:09:13.399 from the 80s is to look at the community college 00:09:13.399 --> 00:09:19.129 as a pipeline and engage not only at the community 00:09:19.129 --> 00:09:23.330 college level, but at a high school level. Now, 00:09:23.330 --> 00:09:25.909 how do you do that? So let's look at the numbers. 00:09:26.730 --> 00:09:30.629 So in my 16 years, I approximately touched 500 00:09:30.629 --> 00:09:33.769 students who got jobs in the Valley. Some of 00:09:33.769 --> 00:09:37.590 them got jobs in the largest IPO that the Valley 00:09:37.590 --> 00:09:40.889 has had, one of the three top largest IPOs, and 00:09:40.889 --> 00:09:43.250 at the beginning. So they did much better than 00:09:43.250 --> 00:09:46.419 even I. And I'm very proud of that, that if my 00:09:46.419 --> 00:09:48.080 students should drive a Lamborghini, I'll take 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:53.480 the public transit. So if I could touch 500 students, 00:09:55.120 --> 00:09:57.159 Silicon Valley is all about scale. You and I 00:09:57.159 --> 00:10:00.259 are about scale. So if there are 1 ,000 Chandrakant 00:10:00.259

--> 00:10:02.580 Patel's in Silicon Valley, or even 100 Chandrakant 00:10:02.580 --> 00:10:04.059 Patel in Silicon Valley, don't you think we'll 00:10:04.059 --> 00:10:07.259 create a pipeline, a big pipeline? So you touched 00:10:07.259 --> 00:10:11.019 on a very, very important point. that I didn't 00:10:11.019 --> 00:10:13.220 even think about until you asked me this question, 00:10:13.379 --> 00:10:17.120 frankly. You said adjunct faculty, and how important 00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:19.059 the adjunct faculty is. Even when I was in City 00:10:19.059 --> 00:10:21.019 College, I didn't have an adjunct faculty, but 00:10:21.019 --> 00:10:23.700 we had lecturers who came from various places 00:10:23.700 --> 00:10:27.139 to tell us what they did. So if we had faculty 00:10:27.139 --> 00:10:30.480 from Boeing Company teaching us about avionics, 00:10:30.600 --> 00:10:35.000 aircraft design, we had faculty from semiconductor 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:38.659 companies, from companies like HP, 3D printing, 00:10:38.740 --> 00:10:42.320 and so on. We would be immensely successful with 00:10:42.320 --> 00:10:44.519 adjunct. And how much time would the adjunct 00:10:44.519 --> 00:10:47.740 take? I did full time at HP five days a week. 00:10:47.899 --> 00:10:50.940 Sometimes I would come back from overseas, Japan. 00:10:51.019 --> 00:10:52.620 I remember that one day coming back from Japan 00:10:52.620 --> 00:10:55.100 at close to midnight and I'd go next morning 00:10:55.100 --> 00:10:57.559 at eight o 'clock to teach my students because 00:10:57.559 --> 00:11:00.080 these students came from all over the community 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.399 and I didn't want them to be standing in front 00:11:02.399 --> 00:11:05.220 of the classroom because Saturday morning there's 00:11:05.220 --> 00:11:06.899 nobody there and they wouldn't know what to do. 00:11:07.019 --> 00:11:09.649 And I would feel guilty. Even when my daughter 00:11:09.649 --> 00:11:12.330 was born, I was there on Saturday while I dropped 00:11:12.330 --> 00:11:15.909 my wife off in the hospital and I went to teach. 00:11:16.990 --> 00:11:20.350 All I needed was Saturday morning from 8 to 2. 00:11:20.710 --> 00:11:24.029 So don't you think we owe it to our country and 00:11:24.029 --> 00:11:27.570 to the students here to have adjuncts? We're 00:11:27.570 --> 00:11:31.230 paid, by the way. And that can add another eight 00:11:31.230 --> 00:11:33.909 hours. Instead of doing frivolous activity, just 00:11:33.909 --> 00:11:38.029 go and teach on a Saturday. We would have immense 00:11:38.029 --> 00:11:43.830 scale. So that model of training, and in fact, 00:11:43.850 --> 00:11:46.549 train the trainer model, train the students and 00:11:46.549 --> 00:11:50.970 who will train others. You hit the nail on the 00:11:50.970 --> 00:11:53.870 head, Lester. There has to be a model to scale. 00:11:54.750 --> 00:11:57.250 And adjunct plus train the trainer model, because 00:11:57.250 --> 00:12:00.009 we don't have

a lot of time. We have wasted a 00:12:00.009 --> 00:12:04.970 lot of time. We turned off hands-on technology 00:12:04.970 --> 00:12:08.139 courses. There were machine technology courses, 00:12:08.299 --> 00:12:10.759 welding courses. A lot of them went away. In 00:12:10.759 --> 00:12:14.000 order to bring them back and try to get people 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:16.700 in the pipeline in the next four to five years, 00:12:16.720 --> 00:12:19.100 that's all we have. There has to be that model. 00:12:19.600 --> 00:12:22.200 So I think critically, it's going to be important 00:12:22.200 --> 00:12:25.320 for private sector to have adjuncts, the government 00:12:25.320 --> 00:12:27.519 to help, and the community college also need 00:12:27.519 --> 00:12:30.820 to change. They need to focus on guiding the 00:12:30.820 --> 00:12:33.759 students properly, not just saying go take whatever 00:12:33.759 --> 00:12:38.899 classes you like. Tell them to take focus classes. 00:12:39.039 --> 00:12:41.139 I still have my catalog from City College of 00:12:41.139 --> 00:12:45.580 San Francisco here from 1980 and University of 00:12:45.580 --> 00:12:47.960 California, Berkeley. I use those two catalogs 00:12:47.960 --> 00:12:50.480 to make sure I took only transferable courses. 00:12:51.340 --> 00:12:54.019 That's how I did it. Similarly, if somebody wants 00:12:54.019 --> 00:12:57.200 to do associate of science degree in a particular 00:12:57.200 --> 00:12:59.240 field, we should give them a set of courses and 00:12:59.240 --> 00:13:01.440 they stay focused on that. That's the way to 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:03.470 do it. Yeah, Chandrakant, I've heard you speak 00:13:03.470 --> 00:13:06.529 about the cyber -physical age. And both of us 00:13:06.529 --> 00:13:08.990 are in Silicon Valley, and so all the talk here 00:13:08.990 --> 00:13:13.409 is about AI and software, et cetera. And I think 00:13:13.409 --> 00:13:17.049 your own background as a mechanical engineer 00:13:17.049 --> 00:13:19.429 at a computer company is interesting, because 00:13:19.429 --> 00:13:21.990 I think people forget the importance of mechanical 00:13:21.990 --> 00:13:26.070 engineering topics. And more recently, energy 00:13:26.070 --> 00:13:29.269 is the area that we're really focused on. just 00:13:29.269 --> 00:13:31.629 because of the sheer needs that the software 00:13:31.629 --> 00:13:38.610 world has for energy. And so with students especially, 00:13:38.830 --> 00:13:41.269 it's sometimes hard for them to understand the 00:13:41.269 --> 00:13:44.149 importance of these mechanical and physical systems 00:13:44.149 --> 00:13:47.070 to the development of the computer and software 00:13:47.070 --> 00:13:49.029 technology that we take for granted and that 00:13:49.029 --> 00:13:51.529 is continuing to sort of explode in influence. 00:13:52.070 --> 00:13:54.659 So can you speak a little bit to... the emergence 00:13:54.659 --> 00:13:57.019 of the cyber -physical age and the re -emergence 00:13:57.019 --> 00:14:01.679 of the importance of physical subjects, and exactly 00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:06.000 how we can find the workforce for those areas. 00:14:07.259 --> 00:14:10.679 Fantastic question. So, once again, let's look 00:14:10.679 --> 00:14:13.019 at the cyber age, which I would say span three 00:14:13.019 --> 00:14:16.200 decades. From, you know, let's say early 90s 00:14:16.200 --> 00:14:19.559 to where we are today, even more. The cyber age 00:14:19.559 --> 00:14:23.279 created such a gold rush. that people all wanted 00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:25.740 to do coding. It's like, hey, if I can write 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:28.039 an app or I can do software, I can make a ton 00:14:28.039 --> 00:14:29.779 of money. Nothing wrong with that. That's what 00:14:29.779 --> 00:14:32.740 they thought. And most of the people gravitated 00:14:32.740 --> 00:14:36.019 towards that. We saw excitement at this level. 00:14:36.419 --> 00:14:40.080 We pressed a button in a car and it autopiloted. 00:14:40.379 --> 00:14:42.779 And we thought, oh, it is all done by software. 00:14:43.460 --> 00:14:47.259 Well, wrong. The emergence of now you're seeing 00:14:47.259 --> 00:14:52.210 these automated vehicles completely full self 00:14:52.210 --> 00:14:55.669 -driving is not just a cyber phenomena, it's 00:14:55.669 --> 00:14:59.190 a cyber physical phenomena. Let's take an example, 00:14:59.509 --> 00:15:02.049 and that will help define the cyber physical 00:15:02.049 --> 00:15:06.850 age. When my daughter went to interview at Tesla, 00:15:07.090 --> 00:15:10.409 that was in 2014, and she's an industrial engineer, 00:15:11.009 --> 00:15:13.559 I asked her, Go to the whiteboard. By the way, 00:15:13.559 --> 00:15:15.419 I keep a whiteboard in the family room. The kids 00:15:15.419 --> 00:15:17.440 used to call it torture at the Patel household 00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:19.759 because there was a term called waterboarding 00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:22.279 at that era when they were growing up. And they 00:15:22.279 --> 00:15:24.000 never wanted to be whiteboarded. But anyway, 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:26.539 I tell her to go to the whiteboard, sketch out 00:15:26.539 --> 00:15:31.360 the car, and size the motor in the car. I say 00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:34.360 calculate the wind resistance. It's the velocity 00:15:34.360 --> 00:15:37.980 squared. Calculate the rolling friction. Determine 00:15:37.980 --> 00:15:41.960 the size of the motor, approximately. What dominates 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:44.340 at 70 miles an hour? Is it wind resistance or 00:15:44.340 --> 00:15:47.360 rolling friction? And then I said, I went through 00:15:47.360 --> 00:15:50.659 all the fundamentals of an electric car, physical 00:15:50.659 --> 00:15:53.000 fundamentals, mechanics of solids, mechanics 00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:55.500 of fluids, all of that. Then I said, you know, 00:15:55.639 --> 00:15:59.059 your boss wants to autopilot the car. Remember, 00:15:59.139 --> 00:16:02.059 this is 2014,

autopilot's not around. I said, 00:16:02.299 --> 00:16:05.120 there's no way he can autopilot in software unless 00:16:05.120 --> 00:16:08.039 you put the right actuators in place. So how 00:16:08.039 --> 00:16:10.559 will you design the car with the right sensor 00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:12.759 and the right actuator. You'll have to build 00:16:12.759 --> 00:16:14.820 the physical platform. You will have to have 00:16:14.820 --> 00:16:17.080 the knobs in it, and you'll have to have the 00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:19.639 sensors in it. If you do not put the knobs and 00:16:19.639 --> 00:16:22.399 sensors a priori, no matter what you do in software, 00:16:22.740 --> 00:16:25.500 it ain't going to autopilot. That is the cyber 00:16:25.500 --> 00:16:27.779 physical story. There's no way you can build 00:16:27.779 --> 00:16:30.919 a cyber physical system without putting the right 00:16:30.919 --> 00:16:33.299 actuators and sensors a priori. That's where 00:16:33.299 --> 00:16:36.799 the mechanical engineer comes in. Think of intuitive 00:16:36.799 --> 00:16:39.730 surgical. Think of auto. you know robotic surgery 00:16:39.730 --> 00:16:42.330 think of robots. Robots don't happen by software 00:16:42.330 --> 00:16:45.029 alone you need to think of the physical system 00:16:45.029 --> 00:16:47.830 with the right actuators and sensors a priori. 00:16:47.830 --> 00:16:50.690 So i made her go through that she ended up getting 00:16:50.690 --> 00:16:53.470 a job she got a model s and then i said look 00:16:53.470 --> 00:16:58.330 at how that how the company will update the software. 00:16:58.929 --> 00:17:01.049 And since she was an employee, she even got an 00:17:01.049 --> 00:17:03.269 alpha version and a beta version of the autopilot. 00:17:03.590 --> 00:17:05.250 And when she installed it, she could see that 00:17:05.250 --> 00:17:07.470 it was autopiloting, and she could see how the 00:17:07.470 --> 00:17:09.710 improvements were occurring. So I told her, see, 00:17:09.869 --> 00:17:12.210 had they not done the physical platform properly, 00:17:12.710 --> 00:17:14.730 there's no way they could have autopiloted. And 00:17:14.730 --> 00:17:17.150 10 years on, they continue to improve it, the 00:17:17.150 --> 00:17:20.789 same car. So what that says is, without a physical 00:17:20.789 --> 00:17:23.710 foundation steeped in fundamentals of engineering, 00:17:23.930 --> 00:17:26.609 you cannot have a cyber -physical system. A cyber 00:17:26.609 --> 00:17:28.930 -physical system is a robotic surgery, a robot, 00:17:31.269 --> 00:17:34.390 an electric vehicle, a regular vehicle, an airplane, 00:17:35.289 --> 00:17:38.390 power, water, waste, transport, healthcare, manufacturing, 00:17:38.670 --> 00:17:41.309 agriculture. Those are all cyber -physical systems, 00:17:41.710 --> 00:17:45.450 and they are important to society. And AI in 00:17:45.450 --> 00:17:48.410 the future will be applied horizontally across 00:17:48.410 --> 00:17:51.109 these verticals, power, water, waste, transport, 00:17:51.170 --> 00:17:54.119 healthcare. The AI that we are dealing with today 00:17:54.119 --> 00:17:58.559 is interesting. Congratulations. But I want AI 00:17:58.559 --> 00:18:01.920 to address solutions that matter to society. 00:18:03.019 --> 00:18:06.319 And the AI must deconstruct conventional business 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:09.220 models. Like if you had a surgery that is being 00:18:09.220 --> 00:18:12.920 done and AI enabled surgery, that's deconstructing 00:18:12.920 --> 00:18:15.359 the conventional method of surgery. But while 00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:18.779 doing so, AI must be more expeditious. AI should 00:18:18.779 --> 00:18:21.180 have made the solution more expeditious and use 00:18:21.180 --> 00:18:26.299 less energy than was used before. So the way 00:18:26.299 --> 00:18:28.779 I see it is, when I see the Golden Gate Bridge, 00:18:29.039 --> 00:18:31.220 I ask people in Silicon Valley who talk a lot 00:18:31.220 --> 00:18:34.539 about AI, I ask, do you think if you use AI, 00:18:34.619 --> 00:18:38.579 you could build this bridge in the same time 00:18:38.579 --> 00:18:42.470 or less time with less energy? I don't use dollars, 00:18:42.670 --> 00:18:45.910 rupees, yuan. I say, with less energy, lifetime 00:18:45.910 --> 00:18:49.390 energy, than it took in 1930s to build the bridge. 00:18:51.230 --> 00:18:53.869 I ask him, can AI build the bridge for less energy 00:18:53.869 --> 00:18:57.450 today, including the energy the AI solution took? 00:18:58.289 --> 00:19:01.029 And if the answer is yes, then AI is delivering 00:19:01.029 --> 00:19:03.509 that positive impact. If the answer is no, then 00:19:03.509 --> 00:19:07.269 why use AI? So my metric is very clear. Energy, 00:19:07.990 --> 00:19:11.069 joule is the currency. And that positive impact 00:19:11.069 --> 00:19:12.910 based on Joule is the way to go. So when you 00:19:12.910 --> 00:19:15.349 look at all of this and you look at the trends, 00:19:15.789 --> 00:19:18.190 it is clear the future is cyber physical. It's 00:19:18.190 --> 00:19:20.269 solutions that matter to society. And if you 00:19:20.269 --> 00:19:22.190 are a student, you better know your physical 00:19:22.190 --> 00:19:25.269 sciences. And by the way, get breadth in cyber 00:19:25.269 --> 00:19:27.549 sciences. It's very easy now. It's very easy 00:19:27.549 --> 00:19:29.190 to get breadth in cyber science. And we can talk 00:19:29.190 --> 00:19:31.829 a lot about how to get depth and breadth, which 00:19:31.829 --> 00:19:34.069 gets us into how to prepare for the cyber physical 00:19:34.069 --> 00:19:36.500 age. So, Chandrakant, you've been involved many 00:19:36.500 --> 00:19:38.960 years with ASME, including recently helping to 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:41.440 pilot ASME's Community College Engineering Pathways 00:19:41.440 --> 00:19:44.220 program. Can you talk a little bit to us about 00:19:44.220 --> 00:19:46.119 that program and how it bridges the technical 00:19:46.119 -->

00:19:49.680 skills gap? I was really honored and thankful 00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:53.119 that ASME requested me to join that program. 00:19:53.940 --> 00:19:55.940 So one of the hallmarks of the program was to 00:19:55.940 --> 00:19:59.200 get some pilots going with various community 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:02.319 colleges. One of the pilots that was quite interesting 00:20:02.700 --> 00:20:08.740 was in Colorado, where Red Rock Community College 00:20:08.740 --> 00:20:12.720 had a program where they were teaching security. 00:20:13.460 --> 00:20:17.680 And the security was cybersecurity associated 00:20:17.680 --> 00:20:23.880 with critical resources that are delivered in 00:20:23.880 --> 00:20:27.500 a city. So water treatment plant, water delivery. 00:20:27.740 --> 00:20:31.000 How do we make this secure so it cannot be hacked 00:20:31.000 --> 00:20:34.900 in? I thought that was amazing. Cyber physical 00:20:34.900 --> 00:20:38.180 security. So let's just take security for a moment. 00:20:39.200 --> 00:20:41.740 Hitherto security has been cyber security. We 00:20:41.740 --> 00:20:44.440 are associated with protecting our credit card, 00:20:44.819 --> 00:20:47.839 protecting our personal data, and protecting 00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:50.339 the data on our computers. That's cyber security. 00:20:50.900 --> 00:20:53.720 But in the cyber physical age, we will need to 00:20:53.720 --> 00:20:56.579 do cyber physical security, which is securing 00:20:56.579 --> 00:20:59.940 the power, water, waste, transport. Make sure 00:20:59.940 --> 00:21:03.450 that All those critical resources cannot be hacked 00:21:03.450 --> 00:21:09.210 in, damaged, and cause ill to the demand side, 00:21:09.230 --> 00:21:11.990 the people who are consuming it. That's critical. 00:21:12.849 --> 00:21:15.269 So strategically, it made sense that cybersecurity 00:21:15.269 --> 00:21:17.710 must become cyber -physical security. And this 00:21:17.710 --> 00:21:20.549 community college had a program where they're 00:21:20.549 --> 00:21:23.549 teaching how to do that for a water treatment 00:21:23.549 --> 00:21:28.049 plant. Oh, that is awesome. Let's focus our cyber 00:21:28.049 --> 00:21:31.599 -physical security pilot in that community college. 00:21:31.980 --> 00:21:33.799 So I think the way to do this, and that's what 00:21:33.799 --> 00:21:36.279 we were doing with that program, was find community 00:21:36.279 --> 00:21:38.200 colleges in the niche area that the community 00:21:38.200 --> 00:21:40.640 college specializes in and double down on it. 00:21:40.839 --> 00:21:42.940 And those niche areas happened to be strategic. 00:21:43.539 --> 00:21:45.500 And that I thought was very good. So that was 00:21:45.500 --> 00:21:48.700 a key takeaway from that program. And that program 00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:50.839 needs to be scaled up. And if I had to add another 00:21:50.839 --> 00:21:53.680 element to the program, it would be what you 00:21:53.680 --> 00:21:55.839 brought up in the question. that train the trainer 00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:59.119 and the adjunct, incorporating adjunct teaching. 00:22:00.019 --> 00:22:02.380 What if, listen, what if we got all the ASME members 00:22:02.380 --> 00:22:04.339 to do the teaching in the United States? That 00:22:04.339 --> 00:22:06.519 would work as well, I think. Chandrakant, it's been 00:22:06.519 --> 00:22:08.579 very inspirational talking to you. For someone 00:22:08.579 --> 00:22:10.480 with your credentials, a member of the National 00:22:10.480 --> 00:22:12.920 Academy, fellow of multiple societies, I think 00:22:12.920 --> 00:22:15.160 it really serves as an example for someone like 00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:17.160 me. And I probably think that I'm somewhere in 00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:19.839 the third quintile of engineers. So someone like 00:22:19.839 --> 00:22:22.619 me who can... see your example, the way that 00:22:22.619 --> 00:22:24.079 you've given back to the field, I think it's 00:22:24.079 --> 00:22:26.799 really inspirational. And I think the listeners 00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:29.599 on this installment of the ASME Insights have 00:22:29.599 --> 00:22:31.339 felt a little bit of that passion. So thank you 00:22:31.339 --> 00:22:33.839 so much for joining us on the show today. Yeah, 00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:35.660 thank you. And thank you to all the listeners. 00:22:35.759 --> 00:22:39.099 It's a pleasure to be here. And the reason I'm 00:22:39.099 --> 00:22:41.559 doing it is so we can achieve the scale that 00:22:41.559 --> 00:22:43.779 you brought up. So Chandrakant, I'm glad that 00:22:43.779 --> 00:22:45.680 you were able to share these thoughts with us, 00:22:45.680 --> 00:22:47.339 especially for those that were unable to see 00:22:47.339 --> 00:22:49.240 your keynote address at the IMECE in Memphis. 00:22:49.730 --> 00:22:51.329 And for the rest of our listeners who would like 00:22:51.329 --> 00:22:54.910 to hear more about ASME events and upcoming ASME 00:22:54.910 --> 00:22:57.309 content, you can always find that at asme.org. 00:22:57.849 --> 00:22:58.670 So take care, everyone.