IBM has an initiative to promote educational degrees and programs in Service Science, Management, and Engineering or SSME, and iFoundry was recently listed as an SSME University Resource here.

An extended abstract of a paper presented at the 2007 Workshop on Philosophy & Engineering by iFoundry co-director David E. Goldberg is available in the PhilSci archive here.

Title: Goldberg, David E. (2007) Why Philosophy? Why Now? Engineering Responds to the Crisis of a Creative Era.

Summary: For the inaugural Workshop on Philosophy & Engineering (WPE-2007), this abstract asks why engineers are turning now to philosophy. Upon reflection, philosophy and engineering are very different occupations, and engineering has rarely turned to philosophy in the long history of the systematic design and production of complex artifacts. After briefly examining events since World War 2, the extended abstract carries over Kuhn’s explanation of the rise of philosophy of science during the intellectual tumult of relativity and quantum physics in the opening moments of the 20th century to the case of engineering in the early moments of the 21st century. Specifically, the paper argues that the crisis of the rapid pace of technological change, reflected in the centripetal forces of the O’s (bio, nano, and info) may help explain increased interest in a philosophy of engineering at this time. The abstract concludes by citing a number of ways that philosophy may help clarify what otherwise might be confusing times.

Download: The full extended abstract is available as a pdf file here.

Krishna Vedula, Executive Director of the Indo-US Collaboration for Engineering Education (iucee.org) just passed along interesting information about the this summer’s IUCEE Faculty Leadership Institute to be held in Mysore, India during June and July 2009.  More information is available on the FLI page here.