Speaker: Nur Laiq, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program and Postdoctoral Fellow, Technology & Geopolitics
In this seminar, Nur Laiq will reveal the political and policy story behind America’s tech boom—and why states have long mattered more than scholars and policymakers have thought.
In the 2020s, U.S. state governments have increasingly made headlines for their stances on technology innovation and regulation—often framed in the media as a novel development. In this seminar, Laiq will disclose how states have played an important role in shaping technology policy since the 1980s. She will challenge the myth that Silicon Valley and the federal government alone built America’s tech economy.
Laiq will pull back the curtain on how U.S. state governments became unlikely power players in the technological innovation game. Long before “innovation policy” and “industrial policy” became buzzwords, states were competing, experimenting, and rewiring their economies in an attempt to capture the promise of Silicon Valley–style growth and development.
Tracing the rise of state-level tech policy, Laiq will examine how governors and legislatures forged new frameworks for innovation and regulation, often in tension with the dominant logic of Reaganomics. The result—a high stakes chase for tech supremacy that reshaped the American economy from the ground up.
Admittance is on a first come–first served basis. Tea and Coffee Provided.
