The Silicon Valley of Water?

Photo credit: Flickr user malla_mi; used under a Creative Commons license

I recently gave a keynote address in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Engineers Without Borders, an amazing group of 12,000 students and activist-engineers who devote themselves to working on global issues at the community level, using their engineering skills as well as a values system grounded in a belief in community partnership. Exciting.

While there, I discovered that Milwaukee is positioning itself as the “Silicon Valley of Water”. Situated on a Great Lake, with four great universities in the area, a history of producing top engineers and a dying industrial sector, a vision focused on bringing forth technologies for clean water on a global basis is thrilling. (John Schmid at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote an excellent article connecting this to Acumen; do take a minute to read it.)

I also couldn’t help but think that this approach of retooling some of America’s own cities to focus on transforming other parts of the world could have an incredible impact on transforming the cities themselves. It is this virtual cycle that we need not only to be aware of but to pursue avidly, and to communicate effectively. My mentor John Gardner would often tell me that sometimes you have to “push the inevitable”. Taking our best and brightest and asking them to focus on solving some of the world’s toughest problems from a sense both of humility as well as audacity is what is needed at this critical time in our shared history on the planet.