Thanks to rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, and other technologies, the world is in midst of a revolution that is causing both material and ideological changes to the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In his 2016 book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, described this era of progress (also known as 4IR or Industry 4.0) as one that is “blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”

Student engineering clubs on campus will recognize and celebrate the dizzying pace of today’s technological advances with a schedule of demonstrations, professional development forums, and service activities from February 18 to 21, during National Engineers Week 2020.

With an Engineers Week theme of "Industry 4.0: The Fourth Industrial Revolution," Fairfield's School of Engineering seeks to shine a spotlight on the impacts of 4IR – in business, finance, health care, education, government, and social interactions – and start a campuswide conversation on how Industry 4.0 is reshaping our culture and challenging our ideas about what it means to be human.

Engineers Week at Fairfield University will kick off with a keynote address by Mark Maybury, PhD, chief technology officer of Stanley Black & Decker, on Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 1 p.m. in the Dolan School of Business Event Hall. This lecture is free and open to the public. Students of all majors are encouraged to attend. 

Dr. Maybury’s presentation will focus on the opportunities and challenges of deploying artificial intelligence at scale at Stanley Black & Decker, a $14 billion diversified industrial company with a 176-year legacy of industrial excellence founded on socially responsible innovation.

With more than 60,000 employees worldwide, Stanley Black & Decker manufactures a half million products in 60 countries. Dr. Maybury will share examples of how the company's products increasingly leverage artificial intelligence, for example, to anticipate falls from gait analysis, perform audio event understanding to enhance security, or to provide intelligent health care companionship to enable aging in place. 

Equally important, he will describe how the deployment of artificial intelligence at Stanley Black & Decker’s 100+ global facilities enhances the effectiveness of supply chains, and the manufacturing and distribution of its world-first products.

Dr. Mark Maybury is Stanley Black & Decker’s first CTO. He formerly served as chief technology officer and chief security officer at The MITRE Corporation, a not-for-profit company that operates multiple federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs), and as vice president and director of MITRE's National Cybersecurity FFRDC. Dr. Maybury served as the United State’s 33rd chief scientist of the United States Air Force, and was recently named Veterans Advantage Veteran of the Year. A fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Dr. Maybury is a Federal 100 Award recipient. He has been awarded three patents and is the editor of 10 books including Intelligent Multimedia Information Extraction, Readings on Intelligent User Interfaces, and New Directions in Question Answering. 

Dr. Maybury earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the College of the Holy Cross (Fenwick Scholar, valedictorian), a master's in computer speech and language processing from Cambridge University, England (Rotary Scholar), an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a doctoral degree in artificial intelligence also from Cambridge University.

The Engineers Week keynote address by Dr. Maybury at the Dolan School of Business Event Hall on Feb. 18 at 1 p.m. is free and open to the public, but registration is requested. To reserve your seat, please visit fairfield.edu/maybury. Students are encouraged to visit Life@Fairfield for information on the additional events taking place on campus during Engineers Week.