Dear Students,
"The World is Flat!"So declared author Tom Friedman in his book of the same title. Today, the order you place at a McDonald's drive-through is probably being taken by a call center in Kansas City and being sent back to the cooks in Austin. The X-ray that your dentist takes is analyzed overnight by a specialist in Bangalore, India, in time for your dentist to review in the morning. The laptop on which I'm typing can be ordered online, assembled at a UPS shipping center at Chicago and flown back to Austin. The very technology we cherish is being used to level the economic playing field across the world and allow workers internationally to compete for jobs. Workers in the U.S. no longer have a leg up. The current economic competitive situation is neither good nor bad, just the one to which the U.S. must adapt to remain a global leader. Rather than raw materials, knowledge and innovation are the tools which will allow the U.S. to compete.
On that note, Associate Dean Skip Porter will be giving lectures this Sunday Oct. 2 and next Sunday Oct. 9 on "Mining the Human Mind: Entrepreneurship and the Knowledge Society." Next Sunday will be in WEL2.224 5-7pm. Here is a short summary of his talk: "Of all new jobs created in America, 85 percent come from young, small companies. Will you have to rely on others to create your job, or will you learn how to create jobs from your own abilities, knowledge and innovation? Come start the learning process!! In this college lecture, we will review and discuss the creation of wealth in a knowledge based society and how to think and act entrepreneurally with examples from those who have made it happen. We'll review how nations’ economies have been driven by mining the sea and the land, and now how the mind will be given prominence. A focus on the role science has played in the Wealth of Nations will be given including the relative impacts of policies and actions in the government, university and industry sectors. Student interaction and discussion is encouraged."
Best of luck in the coming week.
Yours,
Dr. Sacha Kopp
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