Guru Madhavan

Farmers use modern technology—such as drones—to help increase efficiency in farming and reduce costs. Stock photo.

In a Perspective, three engineers propose an expansive mode of engineering practice that seeks to reduce conflict. According to the authors, peace engineering requires competence, capability, and character. In PNAS Nexus: https://ow.ly/41L550Y7Fk1

If friction teaches us how to feel the world, what might we be losing by smoothing it all out?

Read the full story on #FTEdit 👉 The beauty of friction ft.trib.al/zzfAu7i

Then tell us where you stand in today's #FTEdit poll 🗳️ ft.trib.al/S8QnoII

The beauty of friction We are conditioned to treat resistance as a defect, but suppressing it comes with its own risks

The beauty of friction ft.trib.al/Z3XZ4fe | opinion

💡Good #engineering removes friction that impedes and conserves friction that informs. We often miss that nuance. But suppressing friction comes with its own risks; we lose the feedback that taught us how to feel the world.

⚙️ THE BEAUTY OF FRICTION

📰 In my latest for the @financialtimes.com, I explore why GLP-1 and GPT should force us to ask: which kinds of frictions deserve to stay?

🔗Read here (ft.com/content/f9d6...) or 👇🏼

Pleased to draw insights from Albrecht Dürer on how measurement must support human judgment, never supplant it.

Do numbers still mean what they’re supposed to measure? And what did Dürer understand about measurement 500 years ago that feels very relevant today?

🖼️ Selected woodcuts and prints by Dürer, all public domain, via the Art Institute of Chicago, The Met, and the British Museum.

✈️ Frequent-flyer “miles” don’t measure miles anymore. We still call them that anyway. It’s a telling inconsistency that hints at a larger issue.

🗞️ In my @financialtimes.com (@ftweekend.com) piece, starring Albrecht Dürer, I explore a few things.

🔗 Read here (ft.com/content/5e98...) or⬇️

The @raeng.org.uk honors the people who advance our profession, and it also honors the equations that have shaped the world. Along one of its walls, these equations show how we make sense of nature and improve life with precision and purpose.

Take a moment to look them up. #engineering

Stoppard and Wilson's conversation is about how both scales are real, & both deserve attention.
Ext Interview: davidsloanwilson.world/online-conte...
"Unto Others" by Sober & Wilson: www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...
"Multilevel Cultural Evolution" by Wilson et al:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

This tension shows up in engineering too. Some focus on the user's immediate experience. Others think about the whole system. Good #engineering needs both perspectives, or you build something that feels right but doesn't work, or works but feels wrong.

Wilson examined altruism through actions and patterns that enable groups to endure. Stoppard held a more intimate, immediate view: while science may explain instinctive helping in bees or brainworms, it hasn't accounted for the consciously motivated kind unique to humans.

The hard problem: Tom Stoppard on the limits of what science can explain Can evolution explain acts of kindness, and morality? We arranged a debate between a sceptical Tom Stoppard and the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson. Stuart Jeffries acted as referee

"The Hard Problem" of User and System

Tom Stoppard's passing invites reflection on his 2015 exchange with evolutionist David Sloan Wilson. As Stoppard developed his play "The Hard Problem," Wilson's (and Elliott Sober's) work on altruism shaped his thinking.

www.theguardian.com/books/2015/m...

🙏🏼 This Thanksgiving I am grateful to be included in the fellowship of the U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering (@raeng.org.uk), and for its strong partnership with the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Looking forward to the work ahead. #engineering

Photos: Rob Lacey.

Explore the AI-Z of Engineering to discover the amazing breadth of #engineering careers, and find out what is in your future.

thisisengineering.org.uk/ai-z-of-engi...

#NationalEngineeringDay

@raeng.org.uk

🏗️ Who keeps your world running? Honor them. Begin by seeing them.

🌏 In our pursuit of disruption, we often overlook the foundational care that makes progress possible. My new TEDx talk honors this forgotten courage, vital now more than ever.

▶️Watch + share: lnkd.in/enJxAQEP

#engineering #care

A thoughtful leadership exchange and common purpose.

The @raeng.org.uk, the @qeprize.bsky.social, and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering united in shared commitment to advance #engineering that improves lives, strengthens the profession, and celebrates the excellence that defines it.

🤖 WHEN AI DIES ⚰️

✨ In my latest column for the National Academy of Engineering’s Bridge magazine, prompted by the recent events around TikTok, I explore how we’ve built AI into a dazzling yet deficient genius, machines of vast memory but no legacy. 🚨

🔗 Read here: www.nae.edu/340912/Invis...

🙏🏼 Tremendously honored—and honoured—to be elected to the Royal Academy of Engineering. #RAEngFellows

www.nae.edu/340727/Guru-...

⚖️ We don’t need another umbrella term. We need sharper language that makes responsibility visible. Technical work has always carried moral weight. Our words should help us name it, reckon with it, and act accordingly, as the ancients knew it.

📊 Teleconferencing tools, streaming platforms, and chip makers all trade under the same “technology” banner despite vastly different models. Convenient shorthand, yes, but it blurs risks and erases intent. What begins as casual speech hardens into billion-dollar policy and trillion-dollar markets.

💡TECHNOLOGY. What do we really mean when we use that word?

☢️ In a Financial Times column, I argue “technology” now covers everything from nuclear warheads to noise cancelling headphones, stents to social media, and hair dryers to the Hoover Dam.

(💲) www.ft.com/content/a48c...
(📄) PDF images 👇

Introducing EngineerTeen

We're EngineerTeen, a new program from the National Academy of Engineering and a sibling site to @engineergirlnae.bsky.social which builds on that community to help youth chart their path to become the technical leaders of tomorrow. We're excited to get started! Visit us at engineerteen.org 🙂

Why engineers are diving into deeper questions, how ingenuity should meet responsibility, what #engineering has taught Roma about life and Baked Alaska, and my own near-misses—how I almost took up mocha and monkhood.

👏🏽 Produced by Saskia Cookson, Jack Howson Peanut & Crumb

Guru & Roma reflect | Create the Future

🌍 Engineering is peer-reviewed by reality.

🎙️In the season finale of the @qeprize.bsky.social "Create the Future" #podcast, my cohost and fellow engineer Roma Agrawal and I roam through all sorts of topics.

🎧 Listen here: shows.acast.com/createthefut...

Together, we’ve mapped how #engineering makes life possible, livable, and meaningful.

👏🏽 Produced by Tess Davidson, Eva Krysiak, Jack Howson, Peanut & Crumb.

👏🏽 Hayaatun Sillem, Jonathan Narbett, Jane Sutton, Dr. Sarah Rhodes, Suzanne Kanca.

🌟🌟Coming soon: Season Finale ! 🌟🌟

🚀Charlie Bolden and Dava Newman pulled us outward—to space, to possibility, and to purpose (qeprize.org/podcasts/the...).

☕Tonya Kuhl and Jonathan Morris reminded us that coffee is really about connection (qeprize.org/podcasts/the...).

🗳️ Charles Phelps and Eswaran Subrahmanian showed how democracy depends on what most voters never see (qeprize.org/podcasts/the...).

♿Ashley Shew and Rory Cooper flipped our assumptions about disability and design (qeprize.org/podcasts/eng...).

🔥Luke Bisby and Jose Torero unpacked how we’ll face fire, now and ahead (qeprize.org/podcasts/the...).

🚇Pam Elardo and Andy Russell took us underground to meet the overlooked engines of public health (qeprize.org/podcasts/the...).

🎧 Fire. Space. Coffee. Disability. Elections. Sanitation.
Six conversations. Six dimensions. All engineering.

From the everyday to the extraordinary, I’ve had the fortune to explore how #engineering runs through everything—seen and unseen—for the @qeprize.bsky.social podcast “Create the Future.”