NASHVILLE, Tennessee. – The stunning economic rise of China and India over the past decade has changed the financial prospects of many American industries. Coupling this with the United States’ inability to counter its loss of manufacturing jobs, we are staking our future on advanced technology in that sector, and it has brought us to a crossroads. From a “celebration of education” standpoint both the Chinese and Indian cultures have us in a corner unless we embrace a radical makeover during this decade, such as better promoting K-12 math and science and translating its intrinsic value into practical engineering applications and leading-edge research and development.
Today in the automotive space we are paying the price for not having more American engineers coming into the industry to lead development of advanced technologies. Why? When we de-emphasized math and science years ago as a society in favor of celebrating a spring break culture, there was in short no driving force to replace some of the brilliant engineering talent we had in the 1960’s and first half of the 1970’s. Add to that the destruction of manufacturing in our country, plus the fact that the Millennials don’t believe it’s sexy to work in the auto space, and you are left with a perfect storm “vacuum” that is sucking away the future talent of our industry.
So where are the whiz kids of the new century? Where are the devoted geeks who propel science and math into new engineering applications and entrepreneurship? Sadly, they are disappearing at an alarming rate, and instead you find mostly classroom taunts for any who have a geeky love of science. In its place you’ll find instant media and opportunists who crowd headline news fostering our insatiable appetite for temporary fame over love of knowledge. Therein lies the belly of the beast – we must acknowledge an immediate need to reverse the inclination of Echo Boomers to consider Kanye West cooler than Bill Gates. That’s at least in part our mission if the U.S. is to have any chance to cling to our global hold on advanced technology over the next ten years. The new electrical, mechanical and systems engineers populating the auto industry today are being trained in China, India and, to an alarmingly lesser extent, the United States. To be sure, we have our work cut out for us.
The reasons to be concerned about the rise of India and China are well-deserved. According to the IMF World Economic Outlook, India has the third fastest-growing economy in the world, behind China and the United States. It also boasts the third-largest economy in Asia, while its trade in goods and services account for 35 percent of its total GDP. India touts the largest number of English-speaking graduates in the world as well as the youngest, and will boast the largest workforce in the world by 2020. India’s falling poverty index, expanding education and literacy rates, and growing life expectancies are all accelerators to its ascension to global economic heights.
The window we have to maintain any clear technological dominance in the automotive space and elsewhere will begin to close before the end of this decade. Why? First, because the speed of global communication has shrunk the time to design and implement change by a considerable order of magnitude: what may have taken ten years to commercially execute in the 1980’s or even 1990’s can now be achieved in three years or less. Second, the abilities of the Chinese and now the Indians to grasp technological nuance are formidable and growing as they study our key industries and put critical applications more and more into commercial practice. This will eventually cripple the U.S. if left unreversed because of two things: both China and India truly embrace a culture of education, and both have the ability and the will to invest in the future success of their best and brightest.
We’re at an education and training crossroads in the U.S. and we must address it immediately. As New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman recently said, “Those who are waiting for this recession to end so someone can again hand them work could have a long wait. Those with the imagination to make themselves untouchables – to invent smarter ways to do old jobs, energy-saving ways to provide new services, new ways to attract old customers, or new ways to combine existing technologies – will thrive. Therefore, we not only need a higher percentage of our kids graduating from high school and college – more education – but we need more of them with the right education.”
Just look around certain college campuses today and there’s no shortage of “micro-aggression” complaints and “safe space” protests. Some of this activity may reflect the valid exercise of true 1st amendment rights, while most has little educational purpose – it simply fulfills an ideological mission. With the serious economic, socio-political and cultural problems our nation is facing, there are more critical goals we must set and achieve, and profoundly improving our educational system top to bottom is chief among those objectives. Today as 2015 draws to a close, we need to re-define our educational mission, re-examine and reform the purpose of higher education on every college campus, and prepare to completely transform our workforce to reflect 21st century productivity requirements.
In the post-Greatest Generation decades since the 1950’s we built the greatest nation on earth, forged by high educational standards and innovation leadership. Ironically, it is our own wealth-bearing infrastructure killing us through an entitlement mentality that is also what precisely can serve as the means to rejuvenate us to stay ahead of our competitors. If we as Americans set aside petty, partisan differences and band together politically and entrepreneurially, we can slow the speed of rapid advances by China and India. With a united focus, we must look at joint venturing, shared services, incubators, new alliances, parental commitments, virtually any public-private partnerships that are driven by high-performance achievement, in particular those that emphasize math and science.
Re-committing to the importance of math and science will produce more engineers and scientists, which leads to more manufacturing, more exploration, more inventing breakthrough innovation and technologies. That’s good for the auto sector and all industries…old, new, and those we haven’t even created yet. Most of all, we must re-discover our passion as leaders and reaffirm our willingness to build new entrepreneurial thinking. Let’s celebrate the geeks again, and return to purposeful teaching in our homes, schools and communities. When we re-assert our role as the world’s most exceptional nation, the effects will resonate exponentially. We will once again be in a position to solve complex global problems and serve as a beacon for all humankind at a time in history we’re needed most.
Phil Biggs is Executive Vice President for the Nashville, TN-based technology company, NeXovation.
