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Dear Colleagues,

Washington's fresh focus on innovation is long overdue and exciting. C-PET's current innovation series could not be more timely. I'm pasting below a quick summary of our opening event, in case you missed it. It featured Rob Atkinson (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation), Doug Comer (Intel), and Marty Apple (Council of Scientific Society Presidents) and got us started with a bang. A full report is in process.

At the heart of our C-PET approach is to bring together the best minds in collaborative dialog, so the brightest ideas and the hardest questions are under constant scrutiny as our knowledge network continues to develop and Tomorrow's Questions are clarified.

We have five further innovation events in the next few weeks to which you are invited: on Feb. 4, 16, 22, and March 18 and 23. See below for event details.

Best,

Nigel 

Nigel M. de S. Cameron
President and CEO, Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies

Telecon with Innovation Leaders: Vint Cerf
Friday, February 4, 1:30 EST
Vint Cerf
The C-PET Network for Innovation invites you to join our teleconference series with Innovation Leaders. 

Innovation Leader Telecons
 accessible worldwide
 
Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the internet and now Chief Internet Evangelist at Google: Feb. 4, 1.30 p.m. eastern

 Norm Augustine, former Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, who led the benchmark National Academies report Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Feb. 22, 4.30 p.m. eastern
 
Gary Shapiro, President of the Consumer Electronics Association whose new book The Comeback: How Innovation will Restore the American Dream has just launched: March 23, 2.00 p.m. eastern
 
To RSVP for the telecons, just hit reply to this email with "telecon" in the subject line, and specify which event as well as your name, affiliation, and title in the body of the email.
Upcoming Innovation Roundtables
 
The C-PET Network for Innovation and 
 invite you to the following events: 

 

Innovation: Risk, Entrepreneurship and Globalization

 February 16, 2:30pm 

Reception hosted by the C-PET Board of Directors to follow at 4:45

RSVP for this event �
 

Panelists include: Steve Burrill, CEO, Burrill and Company

   Mike Roco, Senior Adviser for Nanotechnology, National    Science Foundation

   Mark G. HeesenPresident, National Venture Capital Association


 

Innovation and Intellectual Property 

March 18, 2:30

Reception to follow at 4:45

RSVP for this event �

 

Panelists include: Tom Donlan, Editorial Page Editor, Barron's Weekly

  

Register for these events by clicking on the links above or email [email protected]. All events (aside from the teleconferences) are hosted at our offices at 10 G St. NE, Suite 710, Washington DC, 20002.

Innovating Innovation 1: What is Innovation?

Your comments in response, and any documents you would like to share, will be received gladly and noted in the report we are finalizing.

 

Innovating Innovation 1: What is Innovation?

  

Nigel M. de S. Cameron

Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies

Washington, DC

 

C-PET's first in our series of four roundtables co-sponsored by the Task Force on American Innovation pressed the question, What is innovation? Everyone's talking about it, but what is it we are talking about? We move on in the next few weeks to core aspects including risk and intellectual property. Bur first, what's the deal?

 

Rob Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) kicked off. OECD has defined innovation broadly. Business models as well as technologies, for example. But innovation faces challenges. It is rarely discussed in textbooks (he gave an example of a text author asked to remove the innovation chapter, since teachers routinely omitted it). Since it represents creative destruction, its enemies are soon evident: anyone defending the status quo. In Washington, it is assumed that "innovation just happens," like manna falling from heaven.

 

Marty Apple of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents offered a definition: a discovery or change that creates measurable positive value. He listed some of the (very many) changes in our everyday lives that innovation has accomplished in a mere 10 years. It lies at the frontiers of disciplines, where they meet. Our greatest risk is when leaders stop taking risks.

 

Doug Comer, Intel's Director of Technology Policy, offered examples: monotheism, cybernetics. The end-point is often not clear; the driver is imagination and vision. Now we have die-casting available in the garage for $10K; and app stores. Innovators have innovative ways of moving ahead. But we need ways of encouraging and not discouraging.

 

Some key points as the roundtable opened up:

 

        Large, small, medium-sized companies the major innovation incubators?

        France offers R and D tax credits worth 4.5 those of the USG.

        The United States has been 40th over the past decade in progress on innovation criteria; 40th.

        Perhaps other countries have the potential for greatness?! (Atkinson)

        Global dimensions - the roundtable profited from comments from Sweden (innovation is not just about STEM!), the U.N. Foundation, the World Bank, the director of the Iranian Interests Section

        What of China? Among other things, they could destroy Boeing by developing the third major aircraft manufacturer.

        Donlan of Barron's: "no-one knows where innovation comes from" - but what about a 100% tax shelter for reinvested corporate profits (me: a no-brainer?)

        Atkinson: the magic of the marketplace will not do it - alone; perhaps 50% of innovation goes to externalities, so are not captured

        Palafoutas of the Innovation Task Force: don't forget what happened to the British Empire, once the lone superpower; who knew during Victoria's long reign that in a few short decades the U.S. would be top nation?

 

I'm haunted by Rob Atkinson's "Washington thinks it's manna from heaven" remark. Time to educate, re-engineer . . . .