Charlene Gunter du Plessis, IPC Education Foundation

Since the inception of the IPC Education Foundation in January 2019, the mission remains to create connections between electronics manufacturers and supply chain companies, academia, and the emerging workforce. In this column, which will be authored by multiple authors from the IPC Education Foundation, we will share updates on programs and activities.

Plans for Engaging in 2020

In 2020, we will focus on a range of engagement activities bringing the opportunities in electronics manufacturing to light. These engagement activities include facility or industry tours, speaking opportunities, informative webinars, and attending and presenting workshops at select conferences.

Our main initiatives will be to host facility tours at industry members’ sites providing students insight into the entire electronics supply chain. IPC members such as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers, PCB fabricators, and a host of other companies along the supply chain provide students with an in-depth look at industry day-to-day activities. The goal is to prepare students by sharing advice and providing guidance about industry-related pathways so that students consider electronics manufacturing a viable career choice.

In this column, I explore the history of Henry Ford's assembly line, how this may be the end of the automation era, and the future of autonomous systems, AI, machine learning, etc.

We have three amazing kids. The youngest, Chloe, has been borrowing her big brothers’ tablets to watch movies. To avoid further conflicts, Santa decided to bring Chloe a tablet. Needless to say, she was ecstatic (and so were her brothers). Chloe is three, so this was a huge step in her independence as the little woman she is.

Chloe is a very observant girl. She has seen her brothers talk to Alexa, ask questions, and command instructions. So, one of the first things Chloe asked her own Alexa was: “Alexa, play something I like.” As a 3-year-old girl, Chloe doesn’t know anything about the thousands of hours that took Amazon’s team to build Alexa’s impressive artificial intelligence (AI) engine. She also doesn’t know anything about machine learning, algorithms, or neural networks.

What surprised me with this interaction was Chloe’s ability to transcend the machine-human interface to a point where she knew Alexa would understand her enough to play something she liked. Of course, in this case, Alexa was not able to respond and asked Chloe to be more specific with her request. Think about it: a generation that’s perfectly comfortable with machines knowing what they like and dislike.