THE OBJECTIVE of GARELAM in cooperation with research centers on lasers and plasmas across the globe is to establish a Global Alliance of Research and Education on Laser Aided Advanced Manufacturing (GARELAM). It is a new concept—a global platform for creating the culture and process of innovative and sustainable collaborative engineering research and education in the 21st century. The tightly coupled research and educational missions of the GARELAM are centered on our hypothesis that the development of innovative and sustainable manufacturing technology in the 21st century must be attained through global collaboration between technical and industrial experts of the relevant regions. Our focus will extend beyond manufacturing and encompass the creation of a culture and process for sustainable innovation. The defining feature of each GARELAM project will be its global context and the concept-to-market approach.

The Vision: Imagine a global society where a student in Singapore attends a lecture given by a professor in Seattle; where scientists in Ann Arbor and Aachen, in the security of their laboratories, analyze share and use experimental data; where a global design team collaboratively creates a new product and submits it for fabrication to the U. S. Multinational Industry facility in Shanghai. Global collaboration for innovation over the Internet will cross-pollinate ideas, cut travel, expose students to global economic activities and reduce costs. This workshop will discuss initial steps for establishing a global platform for the development of laser and plasma technology to be deployed globally. We go beyond the technology development and, via educational programs, consider the development of a culture of innovation amongst the participants in this alliance. Today’s engineering students will be the leaders of tomorrow’s global economy. The time is right for the community of laser application engineers and scientists to take the lead to mitigate the challenge of globalization in higher education.