Science & Technology

8 Items

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

The Benefits of Africa's New Free Trade Area

June 11, 2015

The creation in June 2015 of a free trade area from Cape Town to Cairo is possibly the most significant event in Africa since the formation of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. It is a grand move to merge existing regional organization into a single African Economic Community. The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) includes the 26 countries that are members of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), and Southern African Community (SADC).

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Protecting US Critical Infrastructure: One Step Forward for Cybersecurity, One Back?

| July 24, 2013

Industrial control systems might be the most important technology that you have never heard of. They’re computer systems used to monitor and control a range of physical processes within critical infrastructures, such as opening valves or closing circuit breakers. It is no exaggeration to say that industrial control systems are essential to modern life: they help keep our lights on, our water clean, and our trains running on time. But control systems—and the critical infrastructures within which they operate—are increasingly vulnerable to malicious cyber-intrusions.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Africa's New Science and Innovation Agenda

| May 14, 2013

I am on my way back from the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. This was a remarkable meeting with an overwhelming intellectual energy. The event was unique in many respects. But foremost, it was anchored by a preliminary meeting of the Grow Africa venture where private enterprises have pledged $3.5 billion in support to African agriculture. This was a serious event that involved heads of state and government from eight African countries. I had the unique opportunity to be part of a small group of people working to connect science and technology with the larger business agenda of WEF.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

MIT Technology Review's List of 50 Disruptive Companies, 2013

Feb. 22, 2013

From the MIT Technology Review: "This package is meant to capture the rich variety of ways that innovations get commercialized. Each company on this list has done something over the past year that will strengthen its hold on a market, challenge the leaders of a market, or create a new market....[S]ome of these companies, like the thermostat maker Nest, have burst forth with a breakthrough product, and the question now is what the next one will be. Others, like the battery startup Ambri, are still on the verge of their breakthrough.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

RIP: The Basic/Applied Research Dichotomy

Feb. 01, 2013

From the current Issues in Science and Technology: "U.S. science policy since World War II has in large measure been driven by Vannevar Bush’s famous paper Science—The Endless Frontier. Bush’s separation of research into 'basic' and 'applied' domains has been enshrined in much of U.S. science and technology policy over the past seven decades, and this false dichotomy has become a barrier to the development of a coherent national innovation policy. Much of the debate centers on the appropriate federal role in innovation.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Exporting Our Future

Apr. 05, 2012

We all know the United States has a jobs crisis. President Obama further acknowledged it when he made manufacturing a top priority in this year’s State of the Union address.  He has his eye set on fixing the tax code to keep jobs onshore; training young people to fill them; reforming immigration to retain workers once trained; and setting new standards to drive innovation and create more jobs. That’s all good news for the nation; it’s practically an industrial policy. In all this, though, there’s a worrisome undercurrent.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Innovation and the Wealth of Regions

| Mar. 14, 2012

The world is awash with reports that rank the competitiveness of nations in the global economy. These reports are compiled by purveyors based on the myth that nation states have unique technological capabilities that help them to compete globally. Contrary to this techno-nationalism, it is regions that possess specialized competencies embedded in enterprises that compete on the global scenes. Nation states are an important statistical indicator of regional capabilities, but they do not in themselves determine how such place-based capabilities are deployed.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Investing in Our Future: Manufacturing, Innovation, and Jobs

| Dec. 15, 2011

“Caterpillar to Shift Some Production to U.S.” That’s good news for American workers: 1,000 jobs are coming home from Japan. Some lucky state will win the lottery for the factory and become home base for global sourcing of Caterpillar’s small bulldozers and mini-hydraulic excavators. Interestingly, Caterpillar first developed these mini-machines to fix a distinctively Japanese problem. Cramped urban construction sites cried out for compact excavators. That friction brought on innovation, invention, and manufacturing.