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Developing Future Leaders

Moderator: Dr. Woodie C. Flowers SM '68, ME '71, PhD '73
Elizabeth Basha Timothy Heidel '05, MNG '06 Anat Binur Harel Williams '05, MNG '07: October 6, 2005; Running Time: 29:43

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

If Woodie Flowers gets his way, students with the vision and initiative to change the world will be commonplace at MIT – rather than the extraordinary exemplars who speak on his panel: Elizabeth Basha, who’s developing an early storm warning system for rural villages in a Honduras river basin prone to flooding; Timothy Heidel, who’s documenting and field testing technological solutions for schools and healthcare centers in Ghanaian villages;
Anat Binar, who brings together young Israeli and Palestinian students for a combined computer science and business program, to promote a common language and joint goals; and Harel Williams who broadcasts news of events to computer screens around the MIT campus.

Woodie Flowers believes MIT must be in the business of producing students with far-reaching goals and the skills to attain them: The 21st century demands the “technologically literate and philosophically grounded,” he says. Engineering students who typically ask, “Why don’t you just give us something to analyze?” should instead demand, “Show us someone who needs help.” Though Flowers boasts of having “nerd pride,” he believes MIT must help students acquire the means to solve problems in the real world. But can MIT accomplish this major “cultural shift”? We’re not here “to celebrate the MIT Center for Avoiding Change,” he says. The very successful FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competitions provide a great model, according to Flowers, of engaging young minds in teamwork and “gracious professionalism,” offering “high tech stretch goals” and “the hardest fun you’ve ever had.” And FIRST alumni are more likely to get involved in public service while at college, says Flowers. Ultimately, he says, “Leadership can be in the water at MIT, but it has to start early and work all the way through.”

Lecture Details

Location: Wong Auditorium

About the Speakers

Moderator: Dr. Woodie C. Flowers SM '68, ME '71, PhD '73

Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering MacVicar Faculty Fellow

Woodie Flowers is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and recipient of an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Daniel Webster College. He was recently selected to receive a Public Service Medal from NASA and the Tower Medallion from Louisiana Tech University.

Flowers is a director of four companies and is on the board of Technology Review magazine. He is a member of the Lemelson-MIT Prize Board Executive Committee, and is National Advisor and Vice Chairman of the Executive Advisory Board for FIRST, a national organization that promotes youth involvement in science and technology.

Flowers received a B.S. from Louisiana Tech University and S.M., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees from MIT.

Elizabeth Basha

Graduate Student, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science ('09)

Timothy Heidel '05, MNG '06

Undergraduate, Electrical Engineering ('06)

Anat Binur

Graduate Student, Political Science

Binur has an M.S. in Public Policy from Columbia University in New York and a law degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She was the Jerusalem manager and board member of "Dor Shalom," a grassroots social organization initiated after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin. Binur has also worked for Israel's State Attorney and for the US House of Representatives.