Emerging Tech LIVE! (6)

9:00 AM

Welcome back to CRN's live-blogging coverage of Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT.

Our first speaker this morning is George Whitesides, a professor at Harvard University. His topic is: "Rising Above the Gathering Storm...Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future,” based on a report on U.S. competitiveness and education from the National Academy of Sciences.

ITEM: The US is now a net importer of hi-tech products.

ITEM: Chemical companies closed 70 facilities in the US in 2004. Of 120 large chemical plants being built around the world today, 1 is in the US; 50 are in China.

Whitesides cited the items above, and others like them, then reviewed the poor status of US education in science and related fields. The issues delineated in Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat, were briefly discussed.

The key word in all of this, according to Whitesides, is "jobs." That's the #1 concern of US business and government leaders, with the second biggest concern being energy. He mentioned that China is making rapid strides in many fields, especially nanotechnology, and that the US dominance of science and technology is by no means assured.

Report recommendations:

1. Devote more capital to long-term basic research
2. Create an atmosphere conducive to business and jobs
3. "Vastly improve" K-12 science and math education
4. Fix the US brain drain (?)
5. Create a DARPA-like enterprise based in the US Energy Dept.

Now Whitesides is reviewing details of each recommendation. I won't try to capture all of this.

He says that the White House is very supportive of the report's recommendations. The biggest impediment, however, is that no one has proposed how all of this would be paid for.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog tretc

Comments

[Hal]

I assume this is the same George Whitesides who became a bete noir in the Drexlerite community after his article in the infamous September 2001 Scientific American issue?

http://www.imm.org/SciAmDebate2/whitesides.html

I have to say, I am not too impressed by his talk as summarized above. It seems to reflect a general ignorance of economics, the benefits of free trade, and the principle of comparative advantage. This may not be too surprising since Whitesides is a professor of Chemistry. Perhaps he has a habit of making pronouncements far from his field of expertise.

[Mike Treder, CRN]

Yes, that is the same George Whitesides. I was not very impressed with his talk either. He came across as an uncritical supporter of the current scientific and political establishment. This was especially evident during audience Q&A, when he was rather dismissive of anyone who suggested that educators should be more responsive to the interactive ways in which today's kids connect to media.