OSPE - The Voice - June 2018 - 29

FEATURE

The focus is not on creating a specific product - the magic is more in bringing
people together who aren't already talking to facilitate new conversations, insights
and relationships leading to new conceptions, collaborations and innovations.
issues were still holding back the
community's higher potential to meet
the challenges of our time.
The issues they aimed to address
were pervasive, yet difficult to define.
In exploring ways to move ahead, they
landed on a social change lab approach,
an innovative methodology designed
to help groups identify, understand
and address complex issues. (For more
information on social change labs,
see The Social Labs Revolution: A New
Approach to Solving Our Most Complex
Challenges by Zaid Hassan).
Through the social lab process, the
ECL has brought together a core lab
team that consists of more than 40 senior
leaders from workplaces, universities,
student groups, government agencies,
associations and non-profit organizations
that together form a microcosm of the
Canadian engineering community. (For
a full list of participants and champions,
visit: http://www.engineeringchangelab.
ca/en/home/). This group of leaders,
which comes together in no other
context, sets aside precious time to
meet for three two-day 'Workshops'
a year, to share perspectives, deepen
their understanding of the engineering
system, and take action to further
enhance the engineering community's
ability to meet the challenges of our
time. The Workshops are not conceived
as having participants or members -
they are understood as co-creations by
everyone in the room. In other words,
these leaders, who devote energy
and resources towards advancing the
engineering community with the aim of
benefiting society as a whole, actually are
the ECL.
By design, the ECL aims to encourage
expression of diverse views and emergent
ways of thinking to enhance a shared
understanding of issues. The focus is
not on creating a specific product -

the magic is more in bringing people
together who aren't already talking to
facilitate new conversations, insights and
relationships leading to new conceptions,
collaborations and innovations. Through
the ECL, groups have created to form
new partnerships to work on issues
relating to engineering and diversity, how
engineering shows up in the primary
and secondary school curriculum,
engineering education and engineering
leadership, to name just a few.
The ECL also creates the space for big
issue conversations, posing questions
such as: 'What does it mean to be an
engineer? What is engineering culture,
and does it support the work we want
to see? What role should engineers be
playing in the world?' The passionate and
thoughtful responses to these questions
have reinforced and sharpened the
sense of members of the engineering
community as pivotal leaders that need
to be enabled, empowered and charged
to ensure technology makes the world
a better place for everyone - to ensure
technological stewardship.
Yet while this signals a general
direction for change in the engineering
community, it also leads to more
questions - namely, what specifically
does this change look like and how can
it be triggered?
Conversations through the ECL are
pointing the way: discussions about
the social impacts of technology; how
to support innovation; the need for
diversity; how to promote technical
literacy; ways to involve the public
and collaborate with experts outside of
engineering; and how to focus the efforts
of engineers on challenges that matter,
such as the UN Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs). More learning and
exploration is needed to understand
the values the engineering community
needs to embrace and the behaviours

it needs to exhibit, in order to promote
technological stewardship.
To support this learning, over
approximately the next year and a half
the ECL will be actively broadening the
conversation beyond the lab workshops
and will be engaging in a broad
consultation process on technological
stewardship. In alignment with a social
change lab approach, our process will
be adaptive and flexible. At this stage
we are anticipating a dual process -
with the intention that the two tracks
will inform and influence each other.
On one track we will seek input on
potential Principles for Technological
Stewardship, which seem promising as
a guide for enabling this leadership. At
the same time, we will work to determine
what technological stewardship could
look like in practice by identifying
activities that are already aligned with
it ("exemplars"), and by partnering with
like-minded organizations to learn what
such practices might look like on the
ground.
We're thrilled to support the
engineering community on this journey
to technological stewardship, and will
be working with OSPE, a key driver of
the ECL. OSPE will be able to help us
determine where there are opportunities
to engage with members and how the
voice of Ontario's engineers can help
to forward leadership in technological
stewardship.

➝ For any questions about the ECL, or
to highlight an exemplar of technological
stewardship, please reach out to
Arlene Williams, Director, Strategic
Communications and Engagement,
Engineering Change Lab at
arlenewilliams@engineeringchangelab.ca.
June 2018

THE VOICE

29
http://www.engineeringchangelab.ca/en/home/
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of OSPE - The Voice - June 2018
