By Steven Shepard, Contributing Columnist

Science, science fiction…which is it?

In October 1945, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke published a paper in Wireless World entitled, “Extra-Terrestrial-Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give World-Wide Radio Coverage?” In his paper, Clarke proposed the concept of a platform orbiting above the Earth that would serve as a relay facility for radio signals sent to it that could then be retransmitted back to Earth with far greater coverage (‘footprint’) than was achievable through the terrestrial transmission techniques of the time. He describes his platform in the article:

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Tags: history, network infrastructure, satellite communication, technology, wireless networking

The Conundrum

In my most recent blog “U.S. manufacturing: is it sustainable?“, I referenced an article about how U.S. manufacturing has been leading the economy out of the depths of the Great Recession.  The authors put forward a thesis with supporting data that suggest Americans believe the manufacturing industry is the basis for wealth creation and is fundamental to a sustained and successful U.S. economy.

The rub is that only 30% of Americans said they have or would encourage their children to pursue a manufacturing career.

Why such a discrepancy? An answer to this question is not simple. However, I do believe we must seek that answer and address the gap, if the U.S. is to remain competitive in the global marketplace. Being an engineer myself--a manufacturing and controls engineer no less--I know the first and most essential step to a solution is making sure we’ve defined the problem well.

A 2009 survey by the American Society for Quality, as reported on manufacturing.net, helps to shine a light on our problem.

According to the survey, the top three reasons why kids aren’t interested in engineering:

• Kids don’t know much about engineering (44 percent).
• Kids prefer a more exciting career than engineering (30 percent).
• They don’t feel confident enough in their math or science skills (21 percent) to be good at it. This is despite the fact that the largest number of kids ranked math (22 percent) and science (17 percent) as their favorite subjects.

Survey findings on the adult side:

• Only 20 percent of parents have encouraged or will encourage their child(ren) to consider an engineering career.
• The vast majority of parents (97 percent) believe that knowledge of math and science will help their children have a successful career.

So, while American children and adults both feel that math and science are important (even enjoyable), there is an ironic disconnect (cognitive dissociation?) between recognizing the importance and committing to pursue a career in engineering and manufacturing.

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Tags: automation, Clemson University, DOE, education, engineering, Factory, higher education, industrial, Industrial Automation, Industry, innovation, Manufacturing, math, R&D, Research and Development, Savannah River Site, science, stem, technology, US Department of Energy, Virginia Tech

  All good things must come to an end, and luckily enough, “Adventures of an Intern” will not be one of them! This summer at Cisco has been an incredible learning experience for me, inside and outside of the Social Media Communications team. I assisted in the production of a video with the other corp comm. interns (stay tuned!), researched social networks that the team could potentially use, and of course, investigated different corporate newsrooms for our team here at The Network, Cisco’s Technology News Site.

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Tags: education, newsrooms, social media, technology

Hello and welcome to the first of what I hope will be many blogs I’ll get to write on behalf of Cisco.  This is my opportunity to explain a little about the Cisco Legacy and Building A Brilliant Future (BABF).

As we passed the major milestone of One Year To Go, the focus from the key London 2012 stakeholders has been concentrated on preparing for the Games --  and rightly so.  However, the Cisco team are equally proud of our Legacy programme, Building A Brilliant Future, and the work we are doing to take the project forward.

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Tags: cisco networking academy, education, ICT, London Olympics, math, networking academy, science, stem, technology

How do the kids in your life spend their time after school? Do their activities involve video—either watching it, playing with it, or creating it?

For Cisco Consulting System Engineer Mike Harttree’s son, Tommy, after school time means gathering his Legos and those belonging to his neighborhood buddies, arranging them in elaborate constructions—like recreations of movie scenes— taking digital pictures of the arrangements, digitally gluing these photos together on a Mac, and uploading the glued photos in video format to YouTube.

Tommy is seven years old. His oldest friend/collaborator is 12. Check out their impressive work here. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, federal, technology, TelePresence, telework, young government leaders