“What is our ‘Beacon of Hope’; what is that lightening rod that we can use to energize our youth of today to want to embrace STEM education and career opportunities? When I was a kid it was landing a man on the moon. When I was a kid it was world hunger in the form of Bangladesh, Ethiopia. The story continues…. What do our kids have today? Text messaging? Their next Facebook post? For me, I want to solve world hunger. Not trying to be flippant, but I truly want to solve world hunger. I want to make sure that we are good stewards of our environment.
Unmanned systems may be one of those rods that provide an enabling capability to solve some of our most daunting challenges and may serve to energize our youth of today. There are others out there waiting for us all. A world population expected to exceed 9 Billion people by 2050. Water resources becoming a critical global issue. New and renewable sources of energy. Let’s find those lightning rods and get engaged. Let’s find that Beacon of Hope. Let’s energize ourselves and our youth for the future.”
Joel D. Anderson is Development Director at Kansas State University. This was his closing comment at the recent Kansas Unmanned Systems Conference.