The Role of Engineers in Community

In the past century, our lives have undergone significant changes due to the
engineers' reformed and advanced technologies as well as their, the engineers, essential
spirit for invention. Today, engineers have established a close contact with people's daily
work and life. In other words, engineers play an important role in the development of
technology in our community. They provide services to the one in needs in term of
creating and inventing new technology as well as analyzing it to make its usage safe and
beneficial. Besides that, engineers also educate people to show concerns for the
environment. All of this is to balance the development of technologies alongside with the
effort to conserve our environment.

As we all know, the main role of an engineer is to develop something new for the
ease of human life. Those respectable engineers work hard with their professional
knowledge, skills and their level of responsibility for these inventions. In the past, the
limitation of technology brings many problems to us in terms of communicating, lighting
in the dark, constructing and so on. With engineers in different field of expertise, all these
problems are now resolved. Light we used is the contribution of the electronic engineers;
computer engineers enable us to communicate with people all around the world; civil
engineers build skyscraper and stable domestic buildings; even the airplanes that we are
taking and cars we are driving are contributed by the efforts of mechanic engineers.
Besides invention, engineers exist to provide services for the community. They transform
something that does not exist into a matter in our daily life. Engineers usually service
public by inventing something new based on consumer’s need. So, in general, engineers
can also be classified to be one that applies scientific and engineering knowledge to meet
societal needs.

Since 20 years ago, things keep changing. Engineers developed many things.
They work it out from bad to good and from good to better and then even better. All of
these changes need a lot of analysis and creativity. Engineers use these unique skills in
order to make revolution to the old technology. This is clearly one of the roles played by
engineers in contributing to the community. They use their expertise in analysing the
quality of the invented technology and the effects of these inventions to the environment
as well as the safety of the product for the consumers. From these analyses of scientific
data, scientific knowledge is expandable for the evolution of technology that is user-
friendly. Engineers use their creativity in developing solutions to real world problems. In
conjunction to that, they employ conscious and subconscious mental processing as well
as divergent and convergent thinking when it comes to creating a non-existing object [1].
With the application of their creativity, engineers create almost a brand new world. The
impressive technologies that we are enjoying now all started from nil and were slowly
developed to what it is now. These abilities, namely the analysing and creating ability, of
an engineer are essential for the society as it is to guaranty the development, efficiency
and safety of the product invented.

Uncontrolled development will bring destruction to our lovely mother earth.

Engineers need to have the awareness in placing green idea as the foundation of every of
their technology invention. The proposed green idea includes the aspect of choosing the
right material and ways of manufacturing the materials without doing any harm to the
surrounding. For example, the materials used in the product have to be environmental
friendly. Since the growth of technology is ongoing and rapid, most of the components
and parts applied in the product need to be up-to-date but at the same time, reusable to
prevent unnecessary production of rubbish that cannot be disposed. The wastes from the
manufacturing industrial need to be converted and transformed into harmless materials
before exposing it to the environment. All of this is actually more emphasized in the
environmental engineering field but even so, engineers from other field should not
neglect its importance. Engineers should apply science and engineering principles to help
improve the quality of our environment today. This works as a solution for the pollutions
that occurred often due to the uncontrolled development back then. With that, engineers
are also indirectly educating the public to concern for the environment by fulfilling their
role as the savior of the Earth.

In conclusion, the roles of engineers are to bring new invention to the world,
provide service to the community with their knowledge in analysing data and full utilize
of their creativity to bring out even newer and advanced technologies. Engineers must be
clear about the responsibility that they have to the society and human race. They must
have their own stand and realize that they have a big part to play in human history. The
education that they had received is for them to pay contribution and sacrifices towards the
position they were appointed. What they need is not big bucks or seven-figured or more
paychecks nor is it about leading a luxury life. They lived and worked to fulfill the
societal need and bring comfort to human being.

Reference:

[1] Ab Saman Abd Kader, “Professional Engineer’s Roles and Responsibility”,

2004. [Online]. Available: http://eprints.utm.my/598/1/A_saman_prof_eng.pdf
[Accessed on April 18, 2011]