Medical students and public-health professionals sometimes study or do internships in places where the disease burden is high; but a minuscule number of similar opportunities are available to engineers and technologists. As a result, talented scientists and engineers are often grossly unaware of problems that need to be solved, and even those that might be motivated to do so are unlikely to apply their training to address new and emerging threats.
工学院常常不能授予学生关于发达世界之外的人所面临的挑战的知识和理解。医学生和公共卫生教授有时会在疾病负担沉重的地方从事研究或参加研讨班；但工程师和技术专家获得类似机会的情况甚少。结果，天才科学家和工程师常常完全没有意识到需要解决的问题，即使是被动员起来这样做的科学家和工程师，也无法将他们受到的训练应用于新出现的威胁。