The Business of Nanotechnology
A student writes "Nanotechnology, or any newly emerging technology, is sure to change the way we live our lives. For those who want to be involved with technology, are there other ways to become part of it other than going through some kind of science degree? I'm currently in first year Engineering but want to go into Business (bachelor of commerce). Is switching faculties a huge mistake if I want to be involved with technology? Or are there lots of promising opportunities for a business student looking to be active in cutting edge technology? [UPDATE: name of student deleted by request. --CP]
April 19th, 2002 at 10:16 AM
Charting a nanotechnology education
I would encourage you to stick with at least 2, or better still a full 4, years of science/engineering. To really understand nanotechnology, you have to take inorganic and organic chemistry (2 yrs) and a couple of years of mechanical engineering. To deal with the heat likely to be produced by dense nanotechnology you need to study fluid mechanics and mass transfer. Then if you want to focus on the dry (Zyvex) approach, you need several years of physics and materials science. If you want to focus on the wet (Robiobotics) approach, you need a year, perhaps 2 years, of microbiology and a year of biochemistry. If you can find the time to add a year of molecular biology or even better courses on protein structure, enzyme catalysis, and molecular modeling those would be very useful.
If after all of that you haven't found something appealing on the technology side, go get an MBA. Without at least 2 years of science/engineering background you are going to be really handicapped when it comes judging proposed nanotechnology developments to be able to know whether or not they are feasible or some scientist's fantasy. You don't want to get a job working for a company that is in fact proposing the development of a perpetual motion machine do you? :-;
A major problem facing VCs in evaluating real nanotechnology proposals currently is that there are very few people who have the multi-discipline education I've just described. That makes it difficult to separate the hope from the hype. In reality its even worse because IMO to really have a "robust" nanotechnology background you also need a good background in computer science. There will be lots of students with degrees in business management as well as people out in the job market with proven track records of business management. If you want to position yourself well in the market, you have to have an interdisciplinary education. There should be thousands of nanotechnology startups over the next decade, just as there were thousands of biotechnology startups over the last decade. The founders and managers will be looking for people who really understand the technologies in the development stages. You have to produce a product before you can sell it.
If you ever run across courses that use Nanosystems and/or Nanomedicine as textbooks, they are likely to be very valuable. To take full advantage of such courses however requires that you have 1-2 years of undergraduate physics. My estimate is that to be a "certified" molecular nanotechnologist and still fullfill the distribution requirements most universities require is a 5-6 year education. If you want to work on really advanced nanosystems (nanorobots, nanoorgans, etc.) then you probably need some courses in "complex systems engineering" which would probably be advanced level courses in the computer science or perhaps mechanical engineering departments. If you want the business education on top of that its probably another 2 years. Until the universities start condensing the material into the essential ingredients needed for nanotechnology it a really long educational process.
For comparison consider that Eric, I think, entered MIT the same year I started college ('74). He published the PNAS paper in '80 after a 4 year undergraduate education. It then took 12 more years to get Nanosystems written and published (though in looking at his CV, it looks like he wandered into some areas not directly related to nanotechnology from time to time). Even if we assume that Eric and Robert have done a lot of the harder work (in bringing together the very diverse references needed to begin to sit down with single textbooks and grasp "nanotechnology"), the topics are still not easily absorbed without a sufficiently robust education in the underlying subjects. Spend some time reviewing the breadth of the journals referenced by Nanosystems or Nanomedicine and you will begin to get an idea of just how much education you need to be qualified in the field of nanotechnology.
April 19th, 2002 at 1:24 PM
Re:Charting a nanotechnology education
My estimate is that to be a "certified" molecular nanotechnologist and still fullfill the distribution requirements most universities require is a 5-6 year education.
But, but I want instant gratification and I want it now!
Kidding. I'm kidding. Nice summary.
May 8th, 2002 at 11:32 AM
More resources for a nanotechnology education