I think the biggest obstacle to raising scientists and engineers is... parents. Especially if they are overcaucious and subscribe to the popular belief that technology is evil and kids should play football outside. Kids are naturally curious, and it takes effort to screw that up. Also, there are tried and true methods of increasing chances that a kid will grow up with interest in science and engineering. Unfortunately, they are very uncomfortable to the mainstream views. Some examples:

- let kids have free time, instead of structuring their every waking minute

- give kids lots of unsupervised computer time - you can't do anything but play stupid games if you only have strict time limits, but if they are not worried about using up their weekly allowance, they may start doing some creative stuff (including discovering programming)

- don't mind kids learning how to break stuff, or literally blow shit up - maybe even encourage them; that especially includes pyrotechnics

- let them read the book past midnight

- don't obsess too much about grades

- realize that doing science often literally looks like being less social than peers and involves not going out to play football every evening

And above all,

- be patient