Public policy

Department of State launches new tool to foster online open dialogue

03/15/10 Department of State — Opinion Space, an interactive site hosted on State.gov that seeks to foster global conversations on foreign affairs, was developed jointly by the Department of State and UC Berkeley's Center for New Media and is accessible to anyone around the world. According to Berkeley Engineering professor and BCNM director Ken Goldberg, "Opinion Space is designed to 'depolarize' discussions by including all participants on a level playing field." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called Opinion Space an example of "21st century statecraft."

Think Globally, Act Locally

10/08/09 — Today's college campuses are seeing a level of student activism not seen since the 1960s. What form does this activism take among engineering students? Here at Berkeley Engineering, you will find hosts of students committed to delivering new solutions to real-world problems.

Re-Modeling Our Financial Future

01/01/09 — The turmoil on Wall Street has raised a host of intractable questions. Many of us wonder, for example, if the financial marketplace has become too complex to be properly understood and managed. As The Economist notes, “America's financial system is undergoing a radical reassessment of what are acceptable levels of capital, leverage and interest rates” and – more fundamentally – acceptable levels of risk.

A Better Energy Grid for the Developing World

11/02/08 — According to the UN, lack of access to electricity and fuel in rural areas contributes to 1.6 million deaths per year and perpetuates poverty. For engineers and energy suppliers working in this environment, bringing power to these populations requires a multi-pronged effort, not just to build the grids themselves, but also to plug into the human factors of operating within a particular culture and under what is usually a cash-strapped government. Christian Casillas, a Ph.D. student advised by Professor Daniel Kammen in the Energy and Resources Group, is balancing these two sides of the problem, working out the details of a roadmap to bring reliable electricity to the fishing villages along Nicaragua's eastern coast.

Home-Grown Engineering Talent

08/02/08 — The topic has become a persistent one in engineering and entrepreneurial circles: Is the United States losing its technological edge? Reports like last month's “America's engineering crisis” on CNBC's Street Signs, on which I had the opportunity to appear with my esteemed colleague Jim Plummer of Stanford, fuel the perception that U.S. engineers are becoming extinct.

The State of Engineering

02/02/08 — When the governor speaks about our profession, we listen. In the run-up to his January state of the state address, Governor Schwarzenegger invoked some startling statistics about our engineering workforce and proposed a plan to fortify it.