What’s at the heart of the engineering profession? What unique powers does the profession have and how can they be harnessed? How do the role, purpose and identity of engineers evolve through millennia? And, most importantly, how does philosophy help us address these questions?
Join us for a conversation with Dr Guru Madhavan about the nature of the engineering profession and the value of philosophy for advancing it. In this interview we discuss, among other topics, the historical evolution of engineers’ identity and the relationship between engineering, economics, and philosophy.
We also explore the often forgotten value of maintenance and the essential role of “grind challenges”, plus the design of the traffic management system in the city of Stockholm, and much more.
Professor Andrey Pavlov and Dr Toby Thompson (Cranfield University) talk with Dr Guru Madhavan from the National Academy of Engineering, USA.
This conversation is part of a series of interviews on “Philosophy for Practical Professions” under the theme of Philosophy, Management and Technology led by Professor Andrey Pavlov at Cranfield University.
Contributors
Dr Guru Madhavan - Senior Director of Programs, National Academy of Engineering, USA.
Professor Andrey Pavlov - Professor of Strategy and Performance at Cranfield School of Management. Andrey works on advancing a complex systems view of strategy and performance - the idea that improving the performance of organisations is an ongoing emergent process, which is inseparable from understanding the organizations themselves, their environment, and their historical and social context. Andrey's research aims to help leaders and managers act with intention in organizations that are explicitly understood to be complex and dynamic social systems.
Dr Toby Thompson - Toby is Studio Director of Cranfield Broadcast and Record, Cranfield's live-streaming studio. Prior to joining Cranfield, Toby was a member of the global training strategy team for the corporate university of the former US-based Electronic Data Systems (EDS) Corporation. Toby has a PhD in the philosophy of executive education from University College London's Institute of Education, an MA in management learning from Lancaster University, and a BA in philosophy from York University.
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