No sooner did we celebrate the grand opening of Sutardja Dai Hall, the new CITRIS headquarters, than we were breaking ground for an upgrade of old Naval Architecture, which will provide a new home for the Blum Center for Developing Economies as well as space for the College of Engineering.

In classrooms and labs across campus, faculty and student researchers have been doing the work of both CITRIS—what is by now familiar shorthand for the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society—and the Blum Center for some time; but the new buildings will geographically consolidate and centralize resources, speeding the creative flow and utilization of ideas and technologies for solving the big problems of society.

This feels like Berkeley Engineering’s very own stimulus package, two beautiful new structures taking shape before our eyes that will ultimately connect many of our engineering buildings into one integrated community. The construction has already transformed the look of the north side and infused a new dose of energy into the college, and the excitement is palpable.

It is ironic to see the bulldozers driving in and contractors bustling about the jobsites while we are simultaneously feeling the pinch of the global economic downturn and anticipating shortfalls throughout the state, the UC system and our own campus. We are humbled that during this challenging time we have had the good fortune and the support of our generous benefactors to proceed with such ambitious capital projects that otherwise would have been impossible in today’s economic climate.

In reality, the timing couldn’t be better. With more Californians joining the ranks of the unemployed, more Americans losing medical insurance coverage as states and locales cut their funding, and more of our global citizens being pushed into poverty every day, we have an even greater opportunity to make an impact through the programs that give these buildings their lifeblood. CITRIS and the Blum Center both are working urgently on health care, energy efficiency, safe water, sanitation and other solutions that will help create new jobs, new technologies and new enterprises to accelerate our economic and environmental recovery.

I welcome your thoughts and ideas at dean.forefront@coe.berkeley.edu.

—S. Shankar Sastry

Dean, College of Engineering
Roy W. Carlson Professor of EECS, BioE & ME
Director, Blum Center for Developing Economies