Nearly 800 engineers from across the country gathered at Bovard Auditorium on Thursday to engage in panel discussions and lectures that addressed 14 grand challenges in the field of engineering.

Students, professors and administrators from various engineering schools participated in the 2010 National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges National Summit, which addressed issues such as providing access to clean water and preventing nuclear terror. The summit was streamed live online, and attendees and viewers could send in questions via Twitter.

“Engineering is about invention; it’s not just learning a bunch of science,” said Matthew Tirrell, chair of UC Berkeley’s department of bioengineering. “It’s about transforming the world.”

A $1 million grant was announced at the summit Wednesday to fund the Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition, open exclusively to Viterbi School of Engineering students .

The first portion of the competition for a prize of $50,000 will take place in the spring, when teams will present a business plan before a panel of engineering professionals. The winner will have the opportunity to work with professional engineers to turn their ideas into reality.

“We need more of those [awards] to stimulate creativity, innovation and instill in students the fact that they’re not just here to graduate in four years and join the work force,” said Simin Pulat, professor of engineering at Oklahoma University. “There are all these challenges that are waiting for us to solve and they do matter.”

Keynote speaker Charles Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering, said the summit was a place for engineers to come together and find inspiration.

“You need a society that truly understands what we do at engineers,” Vest said. “This is a platform, a framework to get people excited, and a format for national dialogue.”

An important part of the Massiah Foundation’s award is to get engineers thinking about the business applications of an invention, said Fariborz Maseeh, president of the Massiah Foundation.

“Engineers are necessary but not sufficient to deliver the goods,” Maseeh said. “It is the cardinal reason behind the prize being launched today.”

Vest said it is difficult discuss engineering in this country because of an obvious stigma against the field.

“Many young people are not choosing engineering as a career and that’s a problem,” Vest said. “There is a lack of understanding in society about what engineers do.”

Lisa Zerzemnieks, a senior majoring in civil engineering, agreed with the notion of an engineering stigma of being a nerd or deeply involved in research but said USC may be an exception to the rule.

“USC kind of fights the stigma. We have a lot of engineers that do more than engineering,” Zerzemnieks said. “Engineering can be my career, but it’s not my life.”

Vest went on to say that the greatest discrepancy among Asia, Europe and the United States in terms of industry is the lack of young engineers in the field.

“There’s still no good answer. We’re still struggling as to why engineering isn’t seen as exciting,” Pulat said. “It’s another challenge all by itself.”

Although the number of students in engineering might be scarce, funding sure isn’t.

“I don’t worry so much about the money. Someone once said, ‘We have no money now we have to think ,’” said Jeff Wilcox, corporate vice president for engineering of Lockheed Martin.

Wilcox said the funding could spawn innovation, a thought shared by Maseeh and the Massiah Foundation.

“When you create small pools of money, it is amazing what some people can do with knowledge,” Wilcox said. “What they’re producing is going to be seen.”