MAPÚATECH AT THE FRONTIER, THE PHILIPPINE TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY
Basic Science
There is debate about whether the Scientific Age is in its twilight or not.
Upon the one hand there is the view, put forward by multi-awarded Scientific American writer John Horgan, that the end of basic science is already in sight. Linus Pauling, it is argued, sounded the death knell for Chemistry when he showed in the 1930's that all chemical reactions can be explained in terms of quantum mechanics. According to UC Berkeley biologist Gunther Stent, Watson and Crick's discovery of the DNA in 1953 has left only three unanswered questions for biology: how life began, how a single fertilized egg develops into a multicellular organism and how the central nervous system processes information. Physics, it is said, seems open-ended but Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge declared in his book A Brief History of Time that physics is on the verge of putting together a unified theory of the basic forces of nature that could unlock the secrets of the origins of the universe. After Einstein's relativity theory, quantum mechanics and Darwin's evolution theory, there could be no more surprises left, it is asserted.
Upon the other hand there is the view, advocated, among others, by Carnegie Institution research scientist Robert M. Hazen, that the end of basic science is nowhere in sight. He argues that understanding this fact lies not in cataloguing what is already known but in recognizing what is unknown. How did life begin? Are we alone? What will be the ultimate fate of the universe? What is dark matter? What's going on inside the earth? What are the physical origins of memory? It is argued that these questions among others are inherently unlimited in scope and that the sequence of discoveries shows not the slightest signs of abating. All these questions, it is asserted, are worth centuries upon centuries of work.
Applied Science & Technology
As far as applied science is concerned, however, there seems to be agreement that the end is nowhere in sight. Indeed the application of knowledge follows its discovery. Even if it were granted that basic science is in its twilight, the application of these discoveries could well just be beginning to dawn. Consider, for example, the following. Disease-resistant, vaccine-producing and plastics-producing plants will be bio-engineered. Versatile and "smart" new materials will be developed. Computing will go beyond Silicon and beyond binary. Individual molecules will be turned into switches. Nanotechnologies will supersede microtechnologies. DNA and individual biological cells will be used to compute. The fuzzy subatomic quantum world will become an arena for computing. Microelectromechanical machines (MEMS) will give senses and motor capabilities to chips.
In classical economics, growth is explained in terms of the contributions from the traditional elements of labor, capital and inventory. Technology is treated as a "residual quantity" in the words of Kevin Kelly in his book New Rules for the New Economy. But as early as 1957, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Robert Solow had calculated and shown that technology is responsible for about 80% of growth. It is the major factor and not a residue. New York University's Lev notes that in the manufacturing economy of the 1970's the market-to-book ratio of Standard and Poor's 500 corporations ran at about 1:1. These days it is at 6:1. High flyers like Microsoft at one point came in at about 25:1. The value that goes unreported in traditional accounting methods is attributed to so-called intellectual capital, much of it technology. Fortune magazine recently estimated that ounce for ounce a Pentium chip is about 40 times more expensive than gold. It is not due to the material because a chip is mainly just plain silicon. Rather, it is the technology and the knowledge embodied in the chip that make it so valuable.
The Frontier
Mapúa Tech, like other technology organizations worldwide, stands before an expanse of technological frontier. The fundamental understanding gained about how nature works beckons urgently to be elaborated upon and applied. At present the rate of application of knowledge in the fields of communications and computing has reached explosive proportions. Thus the blinding speed at which information technologies are developing. And meanwhile the rumblings prior to an explosion in the biotechnologies are also being felt. With sufficient number-crunching prowess in computers and in the internet, problems in science and engineering once considered intractable are now routinely solved or are just awaiting to be solved. Caltech grad Stephen Wolfram, for example, is reportedly trying to rebuild physics from the ground up and modeling the universe with complexity theory brought to life by computations using Mathematica, the successful software which he himself created. These are indeed exhilarating times for engineers and techies. The spectrum of possibilities is very broad. How does a technology school make sense of all the possibilities? While remaining open to the possibility of other viable frameworks, I would propose for now to employ in-the-box thinking by viewing the possibilities in the traditional framework of the research and instructional functions of a school.
Research
The center of all the excitement about technology is at the stretches of frontier at which new ideas copiously flow and solutions are constantly being forged. For engineers and techies the attraction of being at the cutting edge is almost irresistible. For technology schools, the idea of having laboratories turning out new ideas, applications and gizmos; of being able to bring these ideas, fresh as hot pan de sal, into its classrooms; and of spinning off startups with killer applications or products is indeed to-die-for. For Philippine engineering and technology schools, the question of being a research school on top of being a teaching school always hums in the background. It seems everybody wants to do R&D and keeps talking about it but asphalt-level considerations have kept any school from really developing any significant capability. If there is aspiration to world class status or even just an ambition of registering a significant regional presence then there is no question that research must be done. If a country's infrastructure demands capability to innovate and a school thinks that it has or can generate the resources to play a role or fill a niche in that requirement then research must be done. But once such a decision to bravely go to the frontier and push the envelop has been made then a technology school must strive to always stay ahead of the curve. Just keeping abreast, no matter how difficult of itself this may already be, simply will not be good enough because the very logic of research is to push the frontier forward. Like in most technology schools in the region, in Mapúa Tech there exists a wide chasm between current status and R&D heaven. Might there be a strategy by which this chasm could eventually be bridged?
Much has been said about the Filipino having an advantage over others in software engineering because of his facility with the English language. This advantage, coupled with the not-too-exorbitant physical infrastructure requirements of software development, could be exploited by Philippine technology schools to vault over the chasm. Success in software development R&D could then be parlayed into success in other areas to eventually close the yawning gap.
In Mapúa Tech we have indeed started modest Internet, e-learning, e-commerce and bioinformatics research projects. Bringing our traditional strengths in engineering content into the mix of advantages, we are starting applications software development in all engineering fields. The intersection of IT and biotechnology on the one hand and the engineering disciplines and special concerns such as energy, environment, productivity, etc. on the other hand will be areas rich in research possibilities. We will be, in general, concentrating on areas that demand resources commensurate with our current capabilities but that nevertheless could bring us research dividends sufficient to enable us to progressively move into ever wider stretches of the IT and engineering frontier. On another level, we can say that we are working on a research agenda that leverages our traditional strengths as an engineering school, that rides the current wave of information technologies, that prepares us to surf the oncoming wave of biotechnologies and that ultimately results in full research capability in all fields of engineering.
The R&D road I think will be long and tortuous but, as an Asian philosopher once said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
Instruction
A technology school's programs of instruction must, for one, be able to support its research agenda.
In the Age of Technology the generation of new knowledge marches to an accelerated beat. To catch the stream of knowledge and deliver it to its students a technology school must seize the possibilities opened up by the Internet and the world wide web. Although the web will not have all the good stuff, a school must still mine the web to the fullest for resources useful not only to research but also to instruction. It must make maximum use of Information Technology to ensure the currency, relevancy, sufficiency and efficient delivery of its curriculum.
Mapúa Tech's programs of its instructions, like its research, will march along with, and hopefully take the point at times, in the rapid advance of Information Technology. The Institute, through its newly-established School of Information Technology, will help supply the entire spectrum of the vast human resource requirements - from programmers to researchers - of the IT sector, locally and globally. Part of the School's strength shall derive from linkages with companies that actually provide solutions to real world problems. The Institute's Continuing Education Program, while retaining and expanding the engineering courses as mainstays, will offer IT courses within the old, moss-encrusted, adobe walls of Intramuros as well as within the spanking new, tinted glass surfaces of the RCBC twin towers in Makati as well as within the hard-to-characterize boundaries of cyberspace.
Content is primary but delivery is very important as anybody who has ever had a Ph.D.-of-a-teacher who talks to the blackboard knows. The Age of Technology has given us a wide range of possibilities beyond chalk-and-talk. Instructor-led learning has been augmented by computer-aided instruction. Both have been joined by Internet-assisted and web-based learning. Looking at today's mouse-clicking, joystick-manipulating, net-surfing, MP3-downloading, e-mailing, chatroom-going and texting-to-world-record-levels Filipino youth, it is hard to judge precisely the relative effectiveness of face-to-face in the local setting anymore. Surely our looking glass will be colored by our warm memories of our own favorite chalkbox-carrying and lesson-notes-clutching teachers who fired up our imagination, primed our curiosity, opened up grand vistas in our minds and educated even our young hearts. The technology school will have to find for itself the correct mix of the means of delivering content. And it may be a dynamic mix over tasks and over time. In any case it behooves a technology school in the Age of Technology to explore to the fullest the use of the latest technologies in the delivery of its curriculum and in the performance of other instruction-related tasks. We at Mapúa Tech have formed an e-learning group to spearhead the effort of employing IT in instruction.
In a talk this month at the World Congress on Information Technology in Taiwan, CISCO Systems, Inc. CEO John Chambers predicted that online education, both in corporations and later in schools, will have the biggest impact on the Internet, "It will be the next killer app…", he said. Mapúa Tech hopes it can help deliver that next killer
application.
Innovation
Mapúa Tech strongly supports the country's efforts to take a leadership position in the global IT industry particularly on the software side. For this to happen we believe that innovation must be fostered.
Michael Dertouzos, Director of the Laboratory for Computer Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pondering the 60 some startups his laboratory has spawned, cites "four pillars of innovation", namely: 1) risk-aware capital; 2) a high-tech infrastructure; 3) a culture of passion; and 4) the ability to think outside the balloon.
In implementing all the previously mentioned initiatives, Mapúa Tech will be able supply not only the experts but also knowledge to the IT industry thus helping build such an infrastructure. The academe is a natural place for the passionate application of knowledge and creative thinking. Mapúa Tech aims to provide a nurturing environment for its faculty and students in this regard. Igniting the passion for entrepreneurship may not be as natural for technology school, but in this day and age it is no longer unusual for schools to give birth to startups. After all the market is the natural place to which inventions must be taken. When Mapúa Tech grads move from academe to industry they will hopefully take such a culture of passion and creativity along with them.
The New Economy
It has been said, and it seems true, that the degree to which a company uses network technologies will determine its success in the so-called new economy. This statement seems applicable to schools as well although the immediacy of the need may not be as palpable. It has to be said though that even as we speak the competition among schools for students, faculty and research and other grants has started going global.
A good question for a school to ponder therefore is how it will put what it does in the logic of networks. How does a school operate and succeed in a network economy? In broad strokes, we know that we should master and make maximum use of the technologies in the performance of the basic mission of a school to generate, apply and transmit knowledge. We know that all other processes related to this mission, including the registration of students, finances, procurement, maintenance, etc. must benefit from network technologies. But, like most, we still have to deepen our understanding of the logic of networks and of the network economy and correspondingly fine tune our initiatives. At Mapúa Tech we shall let loose our "Internet and society" research group on this subject to help find some
answers.
On Being Educated
Exploring the possibilities before a Philippine technology school in the Age of Technology is, to say the least, very exciting, but Mapúa Tech must still meet the usual requirements of contemporary engineering education encapsuled in trite but true expressions. The Institute's curriculum must strengthen students' grasp of fundamental scientific and mathematical principles to enable them to easily adopt to rapid technological changes. It must impart knowledge on entrepreneurship to encourage graduates to be job-creators instead of job-seekers. It must have strong industry linkages to help graduates hit the ground running. It must strengthen instruction in communications skills, especially in English, to enable graduates to function more effectively in the workplace, in the global workplace. It must inculcate in students the yearning for lifelong learning and the wherewithal to do it. And the curriculum must make the graduates as knowledgeable about the humanities and the social sciences as about the natural sciences. The curriculum must also make them ever aware of the consequences of their actions on country, human community and the environment.
As one explores the possibilities in the Age of Technology it would be well to be mindful about Winston Churchill's observations, made at the end of the Second World War, about mankind and science. He said, "Science presently placed novel and dangerous facilities in the hands of the most powerful countries. Humanity was informed that it could make machines that would fly through the air…Fanned by the crimson wings of war, the conquest of air profoundly affected human affairs…The whole prospect and outlook of mankind grew immeasurably larger, and the multiplication of ideas also proceeded at an incredible rate. This vast expansion was unhappily not accompanied by any noticeable advance in the stature of man, either in his mental faculties, or his moral character. His brain got no better, but it buzzed the more…Science bestowed immense new powers on man, and, at the same time, created conditions which were largely beyond his comprehension and still more beyond his control…." The buzzing of the brain must be matched by the stirrings of the heart and soul. Technology must be tempered by humanity. Understanding is not true understanding unless it radiates beyond the confines of the purely technological. As our very own Chairman, Ambassador Allfonso T. Yuchengco, eloquently stated in a speech before Mapúa alumni last month, we must never forget our end goal, "which is to produce not just specialists but educated specialists…The truly educated person is capable of relating an area of special knowledge to the universe of knowledge and of human experience…."
It is my honor to succeed Oscar Mapúa, Sr as the next president of this school which has a proud tradition of academic excellence. It is also my distinct honor to have been picked by the Yuchengco's to implement their vision of Mapúa Tech as an international center of excellence in integrated engineering and IT education.
Thank you all for honoring us this morning with your presence. Maraming salamat po at magandang umaga sa inyong lahat. |
