Industrial Enlightenment: Building Human Foundations for Tech Sovereignty
Russia and the BRICS nations are steadily bolstering their technological sovereignty — ramping up domestic R&D, building national tech platforms, and integrating homegrown solutions into industry and government.[i] Yet these gains mask a critical vulnerability: engineering talent shortages, an antiquated education system, and diminishing prestige for creative professions undermine the base for sustained progress.
The Open Dialogue project explores optimal investments in human capital to enhance well-being, treating people as chief beneficiaries of economic and tech advances.[ii] This essay advances a bolder paradigm: positioning humans as stewards and guardians of intricate technological systems. I am talking about Industrial Enlightenment — a deliberate effort to cultivate individuals aligned with the sophisticated technologies humanity has forged.
The Divide Between Humans and Technology
In today’s tech-driven world, humans risk becoming mere objects rather than masters. This erosion appears across four key dimensions.
The Talent Gap. Manufacturing and tech sectors in many Global Majority nations face chronic shortages of engineers and skilled workers — even in Asia’s and Latin America’s production hubs. Core expertise is ageing out, while education systems fail to replenish it with young talent.[iii]
The Education Gap. A decade in mechanical engineering has convinced me that higher education alone falls short for real-world demands. Employers often must fully retrain hires — not just in technical skills, but in thinking critically, listening actively, communicating precisely, collaborating, and learning adaptively. Even solid training is merely a launchpad; amid accelerating tech shifts and fierce competition, professionals must continually acquire new tools and knowledge. Yet no robust, lifelong infrastructure exists to support this ongoing evolution.
The Cultural and Values Gap. Media and service jobs lure youth with higher pay and fewer barriers than engineering demands in terms of education and responsibility. Popular culture rarely showcases engineering triumphs, and the 1990s erosion of creative work’s prestige lingers on. Consequently, most young people view engineering careers as unprofitable, unglamorous, and lacking intrinsic worth.
The Technological Gap. Multimillion-dollar automation, robotics, and digitalization initiatives frequently flop or stall, starved of engineers and IT talent to execute them — ironically heightening industry’s reliance on human input.[iv] Modern tech, including AI, surges ahead of human capacity to grasp, mitigate risks, or seize opportunities. Intended to elevate thinking, deepen insight, and propel professional peaks, these tools instead erode competencies.[v]
This paradox — humans undermined by their own creations — blocks sustainable tech progress. Breaking it demands a bold new educational paradigm to heal the rift at its source.
The Path to Industrial Enlightenment
History shows that every major industrial surge expands the pool of people equipped to master complex technical systems. Nobel economist Joel Mokyr’s research reveals that the first Industrial Revolution in Europe thrived not just on inventions, but on a distinctive culture of knowledge. Mokyr coined the term ‘industrial enlightenment’: intertwined communities, institutions, and cultural norms that spread and applied ‘useful knowledge’ to industry.[vi]
Nations of the Global Majority now stand ready to match — and exceed — this legacy. We must forge our own Industrial Enlightenment: a unified push by governments, businesses, and societies to cultivate mastery of cutting-edge technologies, honour intricate labour, and build the human foundation for technological sovereignty.
At the practical level, Industrial Enlightenment demands coordinated efforts across three fronts:
1. General Education: Embed tech literacy modules in all school and university curricula; forge enterprise partnerships for hands-on training; and promote ‘industrial tourism’.
2. Professional Upskilling: Establish corporate universities at flagship industrial firms, linking them to public education and academia; cultivate a ‘lifelong learning’ culture with self-directed study; and equip top engineers with cross-skills (managerial, entrepreneurial, financial, interpersonal).
3. Popular Culture: Back media and cultural initiatives celebrating complex systems, their innovators, and national/global megaprojects; open industries to the public via museums, tours, and enterprise-hosted tech festivals; and institute awards, contests, and public honours for engineering feats.
Expected Outcomes of Industrial Enlightenment
This initiative’s effects unfold across three timeframes.
Short-term (2-3 years): The prime metric is shrinking the engineering talent gap — measured uniformly as the shortfall between economic demand and specialist supply. In Russia, it would not only hit but surpass the 2030 target of training nearly 2 million engineers.[vii]
Medium-term (7-10 years): Unlocking sustained manufacturing productivity gains — from automation, robotics, and digitalization — proves elusive without Industrial Enlightenment.
Long-term (20+ years): Societies will generate a critical mass of engineers and researchers to spearhead ultra-complex endeavours, from R&D breakthroughs and nascent industries to vast infrastructure and space ventures demanding flawless execution. This fortifies geopolitical resilience for the countries embracing the Industrial Enlightenment challenge, transforming advanced tech from imported luxuries into homegrown mastery. For Russia and other BRICS nations, it could yield a competitive edge amid eroding global human competence standards.
[i] Konina N.Yu. Razvitie klyuchevykh tekhnologiy v BRICS — vozmozhnosti mezhdunarodnogo ekonomicheskogo sotrudnichestva i innovatsiy [BRICS Key Technologies: Avenues for Global Economic Collaboration and Innovation] // Ekonomicheskie nauki, No. 9 (238), 202.
[ii] Open Dialogue “The Future of the World. A New Platform for Global Growth, official website, 2025.
[iii] Kadrovyy golod. Pochemu mirovoy ekonomike ne khvataet lyudey [Talent Shortage Crisis: Why the World Economy is Running Out of People] // Institute for World Market Studies, 2023.
[iv] Udarílo, gde ne zhdali. Defítsit programmístov tormozit tsifrovízatsiyu promyshlennosti Rossii [Programmer Deficit Strikes Unexpectedly: Stalling Russia’s Industrial Digitalization] // Cnews, 2024.
[v] Kasperskaya N.Yu. Natalya Kasperskaya: pochti vse tekhnologii pereotseneny [Natalya Kasperskaya: Almost All Technologies Are Overvalued], TV interview transcript // InfoWatch, 2023.
[vi] Mokyr J., The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy – Princeton (USA): Princeton University Press, 2002.
[vii] «Vstrecha s uchastnikami IV Kongressa molodykh uchenykh [Meeting with Participants of the 4th Young Scientists Congress] // Official website of the President of the Russian Federation, 2024.
