At the Brookings Institution last week, Larry Summers, former head of the National Economic Council, and Eric Lander, co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), discussed the role of government in fostering innovation — as well as the impact of science and technology R&D on the economy. Among the highlights, Lander discussed the long lead time in basic R&D investments: So current productivity is a lagging indicator of good investments made 25 years ago, perhaps. Where does, say, the information technology productivity that we celebrate today come from? You’re going to trace that all the way back to DARPA — to the DoD in the 1950s […]

Earlier this week, Google released a new report on energy innovation, in which it imagined a number of different possible energy scenarios for the U.S. Google concluded that energy innovation can grow the U.S. economy by $155 billion/year, create 1.1 million new net jobs, and save consumers almost $1000/year, while simultaneously reducing our oil consumption by 1.1 billion barrels/year and our green house emissions by 13%. The report didn’t delve into any specific technological breakthroughs — though we can all think of the many ways in which IT R&D is key here: Since predicting the probability, timing and magnitude of breakthroughs is likely to be impossible we assumed breakthroughs as fact and […]

NSF/CISE Assistant Director Farnam Jahanian has issued the following letter to the community, describing the National Robotics Initiative (NRI) launched last week: Dear CISE Community,   On Friday, in a speech at Carnegie Mellon University, President Obama announced the plan for major federal investments in next-generation robotics. The National Robotics Initiative (NRI) is a bold program that supports the development and use of robots that work beside, or cooperatively with, people and that enhance individual human capabilities, performance and safety. NSF is the lead agency in this multi-agency program that also includes NASA, NIH and USDA. NRI calls for cross-agency investments of up to $70 million in the first year […]

The CCC Council is scheduled to meet in Washington, DC, on Friday, July 15, and will be discussing the role of fundamental computing research in Smart Health & Wellbeing as well as Sustainability. Here’s a formal announcement for the public portion of the meeting — which is open to anyone: You are invited to the public portion of a meeting of the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), a committee of 20 leading computer scientists from around the country.   The meeting will feature panel discussions on Smart Health and Wellbeing as well as the Role of Information Sciences and Engineering in Sustainability.   Friday, July 15, 2011 1:00 – 4:30pm ET Hotel Sofitel […]

A very impressive group of people came to CMU’s National Robotics Engineering Center for the announcement of the Advanced Manufacturing Program by President Barack Obama. I saw among the group: College Presidents: CMU, MIT, Georgia Tech, U Michigan, and RPI; US Senator: Bob Casey, Jr. (Pennsylvania); Government officials: Directors of DARPA and NIST, and the CTO of NASA; and Participants in the CCC Robotics Visioning effort: Henrik Christensen, Helen Greiner, Rod Brooks, and Matt Mason. President Obama was given a tour highlighting four projects: An IED detection robot developed at CMU; A sewer inspection robot developed at Redzone Robotics, a CMU spinoff; A military vehicle created for DARPA by Local […]

(This post has been updated; please scroll down for the latest.) In just a few minutes, President Obama will announce the launch of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) in a speech on U.S. innovation and competitiveness at Carnegie Mellon University, saying his administration will provide $500 million to encourage the Federal government, industry, and academia to work together to develop new technologies that spur high-tech manufacturing and boost job creation. (Watch the announcement live here.) A key pillar of this new initiative is a $70 million investment for major advances in robotics being made available today. According to advance press reports, the President will note that information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology are critical enablers — providing essential tools […]