Comment on the professional approach Subroto Bagchi takes in his essay "Social Responsibility."

Bagchi says that his state of the art camera makes him feel professional. Then he considers other so-called experts who might be considered professionals (by themselves or by others) simply because they have the technological abilities that real professionals have. This leads Bagchi to contemplate on what professionals (of all areas) will be like in the future. His camera, Lens, categorizes Howard Gardner's necessary attributes of a future professional. These five categories (minds) are discipline, synthesis, creativity, respect, and ethics.

Owning state of the art technology is not enough. Lens says that 10 years of practice are required to master an art and this will take discipline.

The future professional will have to be able to synthesize information from many disciplines. For example, a photographer is not a professional unless he/she knows things about the ecology and/or culture of the landscape or scene being photographed.

The professional will have to be creative and innovative since the world is moving so quickly and technological devices have short shelf lives.

The professional will respect the knowledge of professionals from other disciplines. So, collaboration will be very useful in the future, as it has always been. This ties in with the synthetic mind. Since the world is more connected, integration and interdisciplinarity are parallels to interpersonal and international collaboration.

In the future, all problems will require interdisciplinary solutions. Whether it is about negotiating a nuclear treaty or removing a cancerous cell from the pancreas, if anything qualifies to be called a problem, then chances are high, the solution would have to be interdisciplinary.

Finally, the benchmark is to be globally acceptable. This requires a combination of all five minds. The last virtue is to be ethical. The professional must have a humanistic and practical approach to his/her work. In collaborating with others from different disciplines and different countries, the professional's product or work must appeal to all parties in its usefulness to to world; not just at a local level. Therefore, a professional must be innovative but to appeal on a global scale, ethical and "social responsibility" will be required.