Humanity has faced several challenges over the past centuries; wars, hunger, diseases and so many others. While we show a strong dedication for fighting these issues, technology has proven to be the not only a solution but also an engine of growth.

Scientists around the world created so called General-Purpose Technologies that helped addressing the pressing needs of societies.

The first thing you learn in engineering is “wherever there is a need, there should be an engineer to address it”. And the answers to these needs are usually brought trough inventions or innovations.

I will make the distinction here, since invention is considered to be a new discovery while innovation is a new way of doing things we already do.

As a child, I grew up with the desire to change my environment and make things better. I remember spending holidays at my grand-mother’s house; there no electricity there just an oil lamp sitting at the corner of a window. I remember how much fun we used to have there, playing with our shadows and listening to stories telling past legends.

I was a kid from the city and instead of being shocked by the ways of living at the village, I got accustomed and started to think about how I could make things better for my people there.

A great economics teacher told me once: “When a country does not have amazing natural resources, it relies on knowledge to build wealth.”

That sentence has been in my head since, I analyzed it in any possible sense and understood that wealth comes from work. Centuries ago, people used to work the land and grow crops that they would use to feed themselves or their kings. Food was a basic need at that time and craftsmen pioneered the path to engineering, creating tools that would allow people to work the land, plant crops, irrigate it with water, collect and transport the crops to warehouses. From these, we learned and improved our knowledge. We also changed the way our societies were organized but as the world was moving forward new needs surfaced: proper housing, light, transportation and so on.

I believe all humans should all have equal access to housing, clean water, electricity, food, education, technology, transportation. All this can be achieved by innovating trough engineering and building sustainable companies creating new jobs and tackling new challenges.

Originally published on Innovation Tales