A Future in the Clouds
August / September 2010
Volume 8 Number 4
It’s no secret that America faces daunting challenges in education, health care, the economy, energy and foreign policy. But a recent Brookings Institution forum explored how solutions are likely to arrive in the form of innovation and new technology. The day-long forum—“Improving Science and Technology”—examined what the Obama administration and other key players in the technology realm are doing to ensure that America keeps pace in the global race to innovate.
Brookings, a respected, politically moderate think tank, in June unveiled a new Center for Technology Innovation at its Washington headquarters. The symposium helped celebrate the launch and shed some light on what the government is looking for in terms of innovation and technology.
“We’re launching this center because we think it’s a crucial time in terms of our country’s economic development,” said Darrell West, the center’s director. “For a long period of time America has led the world in science and technology innovation. But now there are troubling signs of a downward trend.”
West cited an alarming new development on the patent front as an example. In 2009—for the first time ever—non-U.S. innovators filed more patents than did Americans. West also noted that the U.S. seems to be falling behind other countries in the percentage of gross domestic product spent on national research and development.
Among the most aggressive federal government technology initiatives mounted by the Obama administration is a shift toward cloud computing, or internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, much like the electricity grid.
“We see a world where the cloud is going to serve as a utility for computer power,” said Vivek Kundra, chief information officer at the White House Office of Management and Budget. But developing that cloud depends on the quality of broadband internet connections, explained Phil Weiser, senior advisor to the director for technology and innovation on the National Economic Council. These internet clouds create tremendous opportunities for education, health care, entrepreneurship, commerce and culture.
“Bandwidth is one of the great infrastructure challenges of our time,” Weiser said. “Enabling lots of people in all parts of the U.S. and getting as many broadband connections deployed and adopted as we can is a crucial challenge for the administration. We are looking for all sorts of solutions to this challenge.”
Part of the federal government’s technological push is simply soliciting the best ideas from individuals and the private sector. The search for public input has historically been done, at least in part, by posting a notice in the federal register for six weeks. So the government earlier this year sought input on the best ideas to help the government save money. After a lackluster response, the solicitation was moved online —from Twitter to Facebook to other online platforms. More than 1.5 million people responded in less than 48 hours. The response was eye-opening.
“For too long what we’ve relied on is platforms that we’ve built that are limited to a small set of people inside Washington,” OMB’s Kundra said. “The philosophy of the Obama administration is to shift the power to the American people, recognizing that we do not have a monopoly on the best ideas.”
Weiser concurred, adding that this new emphasis on government-funded technology and innovation is great news for entrepreneurs and the private sector at large.
“If governments just sit and talk among themselves, that’s not a very effective process with respect to looking for the best ideas,” he said. “And in almost any policy domain you can think of, the actual implementation is not going to be within government. It’s going to be within in the private sector.”
In the energy sector, the administration sees a “huge national opportunity and obligation,” Weiser said. One of the most pressing priorities is in the realm of energy is in simple conservation.
‘There are still vast untapped opportunities to enable all Americans to use energy more intelligently and self-consciously,” he said. “Bringing the power of information technology to people’s fingertips is something that the smart grid revolution is looking at.” The administration has earmarked $4.5 billion in federal economic stimulus money to that end.
Myriad other technology-based energy initiatives are also underway in the administration, especially as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E. But health care—another obvious administration priority—is also getting a massive infusion of federal technology capital.
“The American economy has seen productivity gains in nearly every sector, but the health care sector, much like the public sector, has really lagged behind in productivity gains,” said Aneesh Chopra, the government’s chief technology officer. One key area the government is focusing on is information sharing. Chopra relayed an anecdote about public hearing on health care last year. A physician in Virginia mentioned a patient who had moved to Arizona. The patient’s new doctor shared the same software as the Virginia physician, but there was no mechanism embedded in the software to allow for an exchange of information (medical records) about the patient. Weeks after hearing that testimony, the administration embarked on the National Health Information Network Direct Project to complement an existing information-sharing effort called The National Health Information Network.
“Literally within the year the doctor asked us to see this change, we will be delivering the technical framework that would enable all of this simple, cheap and secure exchange of health information,” Chopra said.
Of course, finding the money to embark on such ambitious, fast-paced technology initiatives is the responsibility of Congress. Also speaking at the Brookings forum was Rep. Bart Gordon, Democratic chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee. Plain-spoken and amiable, Gordon wasted no time pinpointing the challenge American faces.
“The path forward is really simple,” he said. “Research and education lead to innovation. Innovation leads to economic development and good-paying jobs and the revenue pays for more research. So my message is really let’s stop talking about it and go have some action.”
The premier innovation trigger in Congress is the American Competes Act. The act aims to maintain and strengthen America’s global economic competitiveness by improving science, technology, engineering and math—or STEM education—at all levels. The goal is to ensure American students are prepared to take on highly-technical, high-paying jobs in the future, Gordon said.
The House has already reauthorized the 2007 law and the Senate is expected to do the same before the end of the year. Gordon had called for Senate reauthorization by the August congressional recess but it didn’t happen. Funding for the bill —as opposed to a simple reauthorization—will surely prove even more challenging.
Tom Michael is Innovation’s Washington Bureau chief.
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