One of the biggest problems that engineers face is how to make their products successful and sustainable. Ethical engineering entrepreneurs lack the opportunities to grow, while engineering in practice requires multidisciplinary change.
Entrepreneurship
We propose a new start-up incubator, to amplify the voices of entrepreneurs looking to develop environmentally and ethically beneficial engineering projects. The incubator would provide a centralised office space in which members could work collaboratively, and make use of provided equipment, administrative services, and mentoring. The scheme could also provide a small amount of funding to the enterprises. This program would not only help new businesses negotiate the challenges of turning an idea into a fully functioning company, but would help train the next generation of engineering professionals to think deeply about every impact their work has, during their time in the incubator and beyond.
Engineering practice
Motivated by the climate emergency and the need for urgent, collaborative action, we propose a parallel currency that evaluates the environmental, ethical, and social impacts of engineering projects. Due to centuries of reliance on supply and demand as the main mechanism for resource allocation, influencing the price of a good, we recognise that the nature of the planet, and our future on it, depends on so much more. Departing from purely financial incentives, this global currency seeks to be enforced at the government level, encouraging the pursuit of sustainable development by all. This will require a multidisciplinary network of academics working alongside economists and mathematicians to quantify the impact of each input reflecting these parameters. For government tendered projects, this currency should supersede the financial cost of proposed projects, if government promises for sustainability are to materialise. This will set a new precedent where the engineering projects that win the bid are the most globally responsible in the parameters.
I've had the following response to your question about balancing your pitch between the video and written proposal:
That's a good question, it's definitely going to be tough for teams to fit it all in to a pretty strict submission limit. I would encourage them to focus on the video as the "pitch" for the idea, so being able to tell a story about how they decided on the idea, what it's impact would be etc. And then save the less impactful, but still important, ideas for the accompanying note.
Do you know if they attended the Storytelling Workshop? I think that was very instructive on how to pitch an idea and therefore what ought to be included in their video.
If you didn't attend the storytelling workshop and think that you would find it useful, please let me know and I will see if there is a recording available. Hope this makes things clearer.
Kate