What Will We Become?

As we continue our pursuit of technological advancement, I find myself questioning the direction in which we’re heading, particularly when it comes to the future of education and the generations who will eventually inherit everything we’re building today. We’re investing billions into artificial intelligence, data centers, the electrical grid, and technologies that will fundamentally change the way our world operates. Yet with all this investment into the intelligence of our machines, how much of that same ambition are we directing toward the intelligence of the people responsible for them?

I think this may be one of the greatest oversights of our generation. We have an abundance of information, more accessible than at any other point in human history, yet research continues to raise concerns about our foundational abilities in literacy, mathematics, and problem-solving. The OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills reported an increase in the share of American adults performing at the lowest literacy levels, from 19% in 2017 to 28% in 2023. While these findings are not a direct measurement of critical thinking, I think they raise an important question about the direction of our educational systems. If information is becoming increasingly accessible, shouldn’t our ability to understand, question, and apply it be advancing alongside it?

When our technology changes, how will our education?

I believe we’re approaching a point where this question can no longer be left for another generation to answer. The infrastructure we’re building is becoming more complex, the relationships between systems more interconnected, and the consequences of our decisions increasingly difficult to separate from one another. We cannot expect the people inheriting these systems to rely entirely on memorized procedures or the ability to retrieve an answer. They must understand why something works, what happens when it doesn’t, and how their decisions influence the greater system around them.

Yet much of our industry continues to operate within the same educational boundaries we’ve grown accustomed to. Manufacturers developing their own training, institutions working within their respective disciplines, employers demanding previous experience, and countless organizations attempting to solve pieces of a much larger problem. All contributing something of value, certainly, but often without the connections necessary to carry that knowledge beyond their individual domains.

We’ve built an industry around interconnected systems, yet the education supporting those systems remains remarkably disconnected. Surely there’s an opportunity to do something about this?

This is where my ambitions for ASCEND extend far beyond the courses we’re developing today. I don’t envision another training provider competing to produce more content, nor do I think our greatest contribution should be another collection of credentials. What I see is the possibility of an industry-level educational institution, one capable of connecting the knowledge, practitioners, employers, and educational resources that already exist into something far more meaningful.

An educational infrastructure built for infrastructure itself.

Our initial work in commissioning, distributed energy, and critical electrical systems is simply where we’ve chosen to begin. The courses, partnerships, and pilots are the means through which we develop and test the foundation of something much larger. Our System Reasoning Model is an important part of that work, bringing systems thinking into technical education to help people understand how components interact, how problems develop, and how knowledge can be applied beyond the circumstances in which it was originally learned. I see no reason why such an approach should remain confined to commissioning, or even the electrical industry for that matter.

The ability to reason, investigate, and understand complex systems is something that extends across disciplines. And if we can demonstrate that these abilities can be deliberately developed, measured, and strengthened through education, imagine what becomes possible when those principles are applied across an entire industry.

But there is another part of this vision that I feel equally strongly about, and that is the potential of the individual.

I’ve always believed that everyone has a spark within them, some curiosity or passion that has yet to be fully discovered or developed. I don’t believe that someone’s present circumstances, previous experience, or educational background should determine the entirety of what they’re capable of becoming. Yet we have created an ecosystem that continually asks people to demonstrate experience before providing them with the opportunity to acquire it. We speak of workforce shortages, of the need for new talent, while overlooking the very people who might become that talent if we invested in their development.

Perhaps we’ve become so focused on finding capable people that we’ve forgotten our responsibility to help create them.

I don’t believe we should lower our standards to accomplish this. I want us to raise them, to create meaningful measures of understanding and competence, while developing the pathways that allow people to reach those expectations. To move beyond isolated certificates and disconnected educational experiences toward something that continues with the individual throughout their career. Where their knowledge can develop, their abilities can be demonstrated, and their opportunities can expand alongside them.

Of course, no institution can determine what someone ultimately chooses to become. The responsibility of taking ownership of one’s journey must remain with the individual. We can provide the resources, the mentorship, and the hand necessary to help someone find their footing, but it is up to them to recognize that opportunity and answer the call. I believe people are capable of extraordinary things when they set their minds toward something, but that potential must eventually be met with action.

And this is where I believe our industry has an opportunity to make a rather profound change. Not simply in how we deliver education, but in what we expect education to accomplish in the first place.

I want ASCEND to pursue the development of a standard that brings these pieces together, one built alongside the practitioners and institutions who understand the realities of our industries, and one that can continue to evolve as the technologies themselves change. A common foundation that connects learning to competence, competence to opportunity, and opportunity to the continued development of the individual. Not an attempt to claim authority over what others have built, but to bring together what has remained separated for far too long.

I recognize the magnitude of that ambition, particularly from where we stand today. But I don’t believe the boundaries of our present circumstances should determine the possibilities of our future. Sometimes we become so accustomed to working within our own domains that we forget to question whether those boundaries needed to exist in the first place.

There is an extraordinary amount of knowledge, experience, and human potential already surrounding us. The question is whether we’re willing to build something that brings it together, rather than continuing to accept the gaps between it.

I intend for ASCEND to pursue that possibility, beginning with the work immediately before us, but never confusing those first steps with the destination.

We must be willing to think wider, and further into the future than the circumstances directly in front of us. The next generation will inherit the technologies we create, the infrastructure we construct, and the consequences of the decisions we make today. What we choose to build for their education deserves just as much ambition.

We are limited by the domains we’ve created, but not by the potential that exists beyond them. The future demands that we challenge those boundaries, think beyond what already exists, and have the courage to build what could become.