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Continuous growth on a planet with limited resources is a dead end, placing engineers at the heart of environmental, social, and economic challenges. Combining rigor and creativity to offer viable solutions to critical issues, engineer-entrepreneurs are tasked with reconciling science, finance, and ethics. Far from technosolutionism and fatalism, they play a vital role in informing societal choices and helping us address contemporary challenges.
An annual growth rate of 2%, exerting an equivalent pressure on our natural resources, would impact them by a factor of 7 in a century and nearly 50 in 200 years. This simple calculation demonstrates that continuous growth on a planet with finite resources is a dead end… and this is where engineers come in, tackling the environmental, political, social, and economic challenges arising from the proven scarcity of many natural resources.
Engineers cannot address these major issues alone, and they are destined to work hand in hand with other actors in civil society. However, their role is essential. The prestige associated with their profession is closely tied to the rigor required for this multifaceted field.
Rigor, Creativity, and Efficiency: The Hallmarks of Engineer-Entrepreneurs
A solid scientific and technical foundation, combined with great imagination, is indeed essential for analyzing a given problem and proposing creative and efficient solutions.
This imperative of efficiency —achieving objectives with optimized resources— naturally draws engineers into the realm of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs, after all, must combine technical and commercial developments under financial constraints at every stage of innovation maturation.
These financial constraints translate into the critical need to create value. Without creating value for the beneficiaries of an innovation, it will be difficult to mobilize the teams developing it. This requires numerous iterations with the field to identify real needs and build an appropriate solution.
Value proposition, value architecture, value equation, and shared values within your teams: the coherence of this “value tetralogy” will determine the viability of an innovation. This process demands a mix of analysis and empathy.
The Alliance of Science, Commerce, and Finance
The rigor inherent to engineering extends beyond purely technical dimensions, and one cannot help but admire the achievements made even before the first Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century. From Galileo’s two telescopes to the James Webb Space Telescope, generations of scientists and engineers have succeeded one another.
I have had the privilege of working alongside hundreds of engineer-entrepreneurs through various training programs and initiatives supporting startup founders and SME leaders. Engineers who “know how to sell” are remarkable entrepreneurs in the Schumpeterian sense of the term, as they operate across the full spectrum, from science and technology to finance and economics.
The success of these men and women is largely due to their ability to:
- Imagine technical solutions to societal problems.
- Protect the results of their work.
- Attract and mobilize talent.
- Negotiate with clients, suppliers, and key partners.
- Secure public or private funding.
Some may reluctantly leave their initial engineering roles to lead the companies they’ve founded or joined, but their engineering ethos will permeate most of their decisions.
Reverse-Engineering Success: A Collective Exercise
Entrepreneurial success is always a collective endeavor. Nevertheless, the influence of inspiring individuals is critical to overcoming key milestones in the development of an innovation.
From a proof of concept to large-scale industrial and commercial deployment, the essential principles of engineering and management apply to our engineer-entrepreneurs. They would do well to develop strategies that are sometimes counterintuitive, focusing on reducing technical and commercial risks to enhance the credibility of their business ventures in the eyes of clients and funders.
This is where the alliance of our engineer-entrepreneurs with complementary professionals —intellectual property experts, financiers, lawyers, and communicators— can make all the difference.
The Humanist Engineer: Beyond Fatalism and Technosolutionism
Climate challenges alone illustrate the necessity of forging broad consensus, from the public to policymakers and intermediary bodies. Once again, engineers are called upon to enlighten debates and propose innovative solutions… perhaps even crossing the Rubicon by taking on elected positions, thereby elevating ethical, social, and environmental issues in the public sphere. This was once the case with the chemist, industrialist, and politician Jean-Antoine Chaptal.
Even though engineer-entrepreneurs play a vital role in addressing many contemporary challenges, we cannot expect everything from them. There is a middle ground between fatalism and technosolutionism.
From the Age of Enlightenment to the advent of quantum photonics, engineering sciences have shaped industrial transformations and will increasingly impact how we work, travel, eat, heal, communicate, and live together.
It is essential to anticipate the tensions inherent in the roles of engineer and entrepreneur, particularly potential conflicts of interest between commercial and environmental objectives. It is therefore vital to continue training and supporting these engineer-entrepreneurs so that the ideology of progress is not a technocratic utopia, but a collective reality enriched by a humanist culture.
