"Black nail" engineering – the "real" stuff
by Dean Thomas L. Magnanti, Vol. 3, No. 5, September 2006
I'm sure that all of you who are practicing engineers have frequently encountered stereotypical views of the profession. The School itself also faces a stereotype about engineering schools. I often encounter conflicting views, even from alumni that: (1) MIT, like many major engineering schools, is stodgy, no longer asks our students to roll up their sleeves and create things, and has lost touch with practice, and (2) we have broadened our engineering education (read: "watered down") to the point that we no longer provide our students with the required foundations. Both perceptions are way off base.
The nitty gritty of "real engineering" – in education and product development
The truth is, today's School of Engineering focuses both on giving our students the best foundation of engineering science fundamentals and on developing abilities to create products and services that impact society. Indeed, one of our underlying tenets is that theory and practice go hand in hand, as embodied in MIT's motto mens et manus.[1] There is much that I could say about this topic. I write today about one aspect of the theory-practice spectrum: what one of our former faculty members called "black nail" engineering, that is, the "real" engineering that takes getting your hands dirty to make things. It's this kind of engineering that is key to the School's mission and that has significant impact on the world. The School, through our faculty and alumni, has a glorious tradition of developing and contributing to life-changing technologies over the past decades. That tradition goes on today.
Developing "real engineering" skills is a critical ingredient of an MIT engineering education, one on which we place tremendous importance. Our faculty support this thrust in a variety of ways: by conducting exciting and engaging design contests, by teaching how to create and develop products, and by creating novel products, services and even companies. Our School-based Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP) provides students with needed skills and experiences to prepare them for careers in "real" engineering. The Innovation Teams ("i-Teams") course, taught jointly by the School of Engineering and the Sloan School of Management, gives entrepreneurial graduate students experience in bringing innovations from research to the marketplace.
You probably already know how vital creating new technologies and products is to the economic well-being of a nation. Robert Solow, an MIT faculty member and Nobel laureate in economics, has estimated that 50 percent of this nation's economic growth since World War II can be attributed directly to technology. Looking at MIT alone, a well known BankBoston study in 1997[2] cited 4,000 MIT-founded companies as employing over a million people and having annual world sales of $232 billion. If these companies had constituted a foreign country at that time, they would have ranked 24th-largest in the world – just behind South Africa and ahead of Thailand. The same study found that one out of every 170 jobs in the United States in 1994 had been created by an MIT graduate or professor.
School of Engineering contributions add economic value
As I have noted before in this newsletter, the MIT School of Engineering has contributed to many of the major technological developments that transformed the last century: electricity, automobiles, spacecraft, radio and television, refrigeration, telephones, health technologies, and computers. Some of our most distinguished alumni, those luminary "real engineers," took a hands-on approach to develop spectacular products and lead companies that shaped significant aspects of our lives in the 20th century and beyond. These include Amar Bose, Alex d'Arbeloff, Alex Dreyfoos, Bernie Gordon, Bill Hewlett, Bob Metcalfe, Bob Noyce, Ken Olsen, Neil Pappalardo, and Ray Stata, to name a few. Their extraordinary achievements and those of many, many other successful engineering alumni exemplify MIT's magnificent tradition of "real" engineering. As MIT engineers, we take our mens et manus seriously!
That's only part of the story. Many of our faculty, researchers, and alumni have started companies and continue to do so in impressive numbers. MIT alumni are credited with having started 75 percent of the companies along the Route 128 high-tech beltway that rings Boston. Today, MIT makes new invention disclosures at a rate of one to two per day and, in fiscal year 2005 alone, had 133 new U.S. patents, over 100 new license agreements, and launched 20 new companies. MIT inventions add more than $20 billion and 150,000 jobs to the economy each year.
"Young" companies based on MIT "real" engineering
One way we continue to create new products and new companies is through our Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. The Center bridges the innovation gap that often exists between leading-edge technologies and the marketplace. Entering its fifth annual funding cycle, the program provides research funds that permit MIT faculty and students to create and investigate new technologies and support the transfer of new knowledge and technologies from the Institute to young companies. Over 200 faculty and their students have participated. Of the 51 projects that have received $6 million in Deshpande Ignition and Innovation Grants to date, about one-third are making progress toward startups, with nine new companies having already been formed, raising a total of $40 million in outside financing.
The Deshpande Center spinoffs include the following:
- A powered orthotic device that enables independence and self-treatment for stroke survivors. The developers won the MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition, formed a company, Myomo, and are in clinical trials at a major leading rehabilitation center and teaching hospital in the Boston area.
- A quantum dot light-emitting device (LED) that led to QD Vision, a startup developing next-generation displays.
- A cell therapy technology that led to the formation of Pervasis Therapeutics, with first-round financing from Polaris Ventures and Flagship Venture Partners.
- A 3D imaging technology, licensed by Brontes Technologies, that is currently being used to enable practitioners to perform ImpressionFreeTM dentistry.
I could tell you of many other new companies successfully started by our faculty and young alumni that are creating economic value for society. Instead of detailing these and other companies, however, let me tell you more about some of today's "real" engineers among our alumni, faculty, and researchers in the sidebar to this article.
MIT'S enduring commitment to "real" engineering
The School of Engineering has a glorious tradition in "real" engineering, developing revolutionizing technologies and products that have served the betterment of the world. We continue to do so every day. You can see evidence of our long-standing commitment in our delivery of applied, hands-on engineering education; you can see it in the spectacular achievements of our alumni, faculty, and researchers who, in their application of "real" engineering skills, create and develop important products and launch companies. Our impact on the world is something of which I will always be immensely proud.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Mens et manus and MIT's seal
[2] MIT: The Impact of Innovation, BankBoston Economics Department, 1997.