Preparing Engineers for Global ChallengesWhen it comes to preparing engineering faculty and students to meet global engineeringchallenges, nothing compares to bringing together business executives, government officials, andeducators from around the world to explore uncommon solutions to common global problems.The world of the twenty first century faces many challenges that future engineers are expected toconquer. As a matter of fact, problems such as climate change and global warming, watershortages, depletion of energy resources, scarcity of materials, overpopulation, and poverty areno longer bounded by geographic and cultural divides. As a result, engineering education mustrise to the challenges of tomorrow and produce engineers and constructors who possess theneeded knowledge, skills, global perspective, and social awareness to succeed. This is aformidable challenge that educational institutions are unlikely to be able to meet alone as the taskgoes beyond ensuring student technical competency. It must involve collaboration with globalbusiness partners, international institutions, and employers seeking engineering graduates.This paper describes a highly successful effort consisting of an international conference thatbrought together prominent leaders from the industry, government, policymakers, and scholarsfrom 31 different countries to discuss a multitude of relevant topics such as sustainable buildingsystems, construction markets around the world, risk management, housing shortages, on-lineconstruction management, world-wide innovations in materials, and the status of public-privatepartnerships around the world, just to name a few. The conference also created opportunities fora fortune 500 company to hold two ideation sessions to seek input from 40 prominent guestsattending the conference. Twelve ministers, 97 CEOs and presidents, and 49 scholarsparticipated in the International Construction Innovations Conference (ICIC) and theEngineering News Record published a special article on its significant scope and ...