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Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

  • A Clearer Vision for American Innovation and Jobs

    Posted by Quentin Palfrey on September 7, 2011 at 6:48 PM EDT

    As the Senate is poised to vote on the bipartisan Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, U.S. Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank and Patent and Trademark Office Director David Kappos will celebrate another remarkable milestone tomorrow morning — the issuance of U.S. patent No. 8,000,000. 

    Patent No. 8 million offers a dramatic technological contrast to the very first US.. patent, signed by President George Washington on July 31, 1790, and issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a new way of making potash, an ingredient used in fertilizer.  Granted to Second Sight Medical Products, Inc., the new patent is for an apparatus that enhances vision for people who are going blind due to the degeneration of light-detecting cells in their eyes.  It uses a miniature video camera mounted on a pair of glasses to do the work of the eye’s retina, transforming incoming light into electrical stimulation that in turn creates visual images in the brain. 

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  • New Competition Brings Robots to Market

    Posted by Chuck Thorpe on September 7, 2011 at 10:37 AM EDT

    The field of robotics has a long and rich tradition of competitions, from FIRST and Botball to the DARPA Autonomous Driving Grand Challenges and the Google Lunar X-Prize. By inspiring contestants to out-innovate one another, competitions like these have helped generate great technology as well as excitement among students and researchers.

    Now there is a new robotics competition—one designed to take the next step of getting good robotics ideas out of the labs and into commercial production. RoboBowl is a competition with a focus on business plans, encouraging start-ups to bring great robotic ideas to market.

    Co-sponsored by The Robotics Technology Consortium (a non-profit robotics industry organization), the Innovation Accelerator (a private promoter of economic competitiveness that works in partnership with Federal entities), and Carnegie Mellon University, RoboBowl intends to spin off a series of competitions, with the first one focused on the area of “healthcare and quality of life.” Five finalists will each get $5,000 and an invitation to a final competitive round, the winner of which will take home an additional $20,000.

    Full information is available here. And whether you're a student, an engineer, or a start-up business with good ideas for a product, stay tuned for announcements of other RoboBowl competitions on other robotics topics around the country, and contribute your ideas via robots@ostp.gov.

    Chuck Thorpe is Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics at OSTP

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  • Competition Provides Solution for Stopping Uncooperative Vehicles

    Posted by Alok Das on September 1, 2011 at 2:56 PM EDT

    Is there a viable, sustainable and affordable means of stopping an uncooperative fleeing vehicle (small car or truck) without causing permanent damage to the vehicle or harming any of the occupants? This is a problem that has vexed military security forces and civilian police for years.

    Currently, many police forces use various “tire shredder” strips. These require the strips to be prepositioned in order to work and destroy the tires in the process. This is dangerous and has led to police officer deaths while getting the strips in place or from drivers swerving around the devices. The Department of Homeland security, in a major contract in 2009, developed the “SQUID.” This device entangles the wheels of a vehicle and stops it without destroying any part of the vehicle.  But this device also requires being prepositioned and triggered as the vehicle runs over it. None of these devices provide a rapid and easily deployed capability to stop vehicles.

    In March 2011—taking advantage of the prize-awarding authority granted by the America Competes Act and with help from the non-profit Wright Brothers Institute and Innocentive, an industry leader in open innovation—the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) opened this challenge to the world to solve by posting it on its open innovation portal. Within 60 days, there were 1,071 people signed up to tackle this problem. Of these interested parties, 119 people provided a wide range of detailed proposed solutions. A team of AFRL researchers evaluated these proposals and one really stood out. The team unanimously judged that this novel idea met all of the requirements.

    The solution provider, Dante Barbis, was a retired 66-year-old mechanical engineer from Lima, Peru, and under the terms of the challenge he was awarded $25,000 for the rights to use his idea. The solution consists of a remote electric-powered vehicle that can accelerate up to 130 MPH within 3 seconds, position itself under a fleeing car, then automatically trigger a restrained airbag to lift the car and slide it to a stop. This design overcomes the previous restrictions of having to preposition the system. It is almost universally applicable to multiple scenarios and it is very affordable. AFRL has assigned a team and allocated funding to build and test a prototype based on Barbis’s detailed design. If the system passes all the operational testing, the prototype will be demonstrated to the USAF Security Forces and the design will be transitioned for operational use.

    Open Innovation is a real force multiplier for AFRL. By opening this challenge up to the world through Innocentive, we were able to multiply the number of people thinking about this problem over 100-fold, and received a workable solution within a 60-day period. The quality of this solution is outstanding and energized our junior workforce team to quickly test and deliver a solution to our Air Force warfighters.

    Alok Das is the leader of the rapid reaction force at the Air Force Research Laboratory

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  • Path to Emergency Response Standards

    Posted by Franca Jones and Phil Coyle on August 30, 2011 at 2:38 PM EDT

    In pursuit of the President’s goal of national preparedness, it is essential that the Nation has reliable chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives (CBRNE) countermeasures equipment that can be used with confidence for the protection of life, health, property, and commerce.  Today, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in collaboration with the Departments of Homeland Security and Commerce, released the National Strategy for CBRNE Standards, which describes the Federal vision and goals for the coordination, prioritization, establishment, and implementation of CBRNE equipment standards by 2020.

    This Strategy—created by the Cabinet-level National Science and Technology Council, which is the principal means within the Executive Branch for coordinating interagency science and technology policies—represents the Federal consensus regarding the development of standards for CBRNE equipment used by Federal, state, local, and tribal responders for CBRNE detection, protection, and decontamination.  The Strategy is the result of a process that included the identification of current research efforts and practices with respect to performance specifications and test methods, as well as standards-development needs of all relevant Federal entities.

    The Strategy concludes that achievement of the following goals will be key to ensuring technical performance and interoperability of CBRNE technology, appropriate equipment deployment, and effective user training:

    • Establish an interagency group for CBRNE standards to promote the coordination of such standards among Federal, state, local, and tribal communities
    • Coordinate and facilitate the development and adoption of CBRNE equipment performance standards
    • Coordinate and facilitate the development and adoption of CBRNE equipment interoperability standards
    • Promote enduring CBRNE standard operating procedures
    • Establish voluntary CBRNE training and certification standards and promote policies that foster their adoption
    • Establish a comprehensive CBRNE equipment testing and evaluation (T&E) infrastructure and capability to support conformity assessment standards

    The first of these goals was achieved on April 15, 2011, with the establishment of the Subcommittee on CBRNE Standards under the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Homeland and National Security.  The Subcommittee has already begun to create a plan for achieving the Strategy’s remaining goals.

    Franca Jones is a Senior Policy Analyst at OSTP

    Phil Coyle is Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at OSTP

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  • Rural America = Smart America

    Posted by Nick Sinai on August 29, 2011 at 4:42 PM EDT

    Today, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack announced that the USDA will fund $900 million of smart grid technologies and improvements to generation and transmission facilities, as part of the Obama Administration commitment to supporting energy efficiency and economic growth in rural America.  These loans to rural electric cooperatives will help consumers save money and create jobs across 14 states.

    "Rural electric cooperatives provide direct jobs and support economic growth in our rural communities," Vilsack said in a statement. "By financing electrical system improvements USDA and the Obama Administration help ensure sustainable growth and business job creation. Investments in smart grid technologies will give rural electric utilities and their consumers one more tool to better manage use of electricity, increase reliability and lower costs."

    USDA’s investments reflect the Obama Administration’s commitment to modernizing the Nation’s electric grid for a 21st century economy.  In June, the Administration outlined a series of efforts to build new transmission lines and apply digital technologies to the electric system to ensure a secure and reliable grid, catalyze innovation, and create jobs of the future.  The Administration released a policy framework that promotes cost-effective smart grid investments, fosters innovation to spur the development of new products and services, empowers consumers to make informed decisions with better energy information, and secures the grid against cyber-attacks.

    Smart grid technologies can help electric utilities and grid operators better manage the Nation’s electric infrastructure, including during extreme events like Hurricane Irene and long-duration heat waves.  Additionally, these new technologies will give consumers easy-to-use tools that will allow better monitoring and management of their own energy consumption.  These tools, which include new web sites, smart meters, and Internet-connected thermostats, have the ability to lower consumers' electric bills and occupy one part of a new economic ecosystem in which grid-oriented entrepreneurs are starting new businesses and creating jobs.

    Nick Sinai is Senior Advisor to the U.S. Chief Technology Officer

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  • Entrepreneur All-Stars Join the Startup America Partnership

    Posted by Tom Kalil and Doug Rand on August 23, 2011 at 5:26 PM EDT

    This past January, President Obama called on both the Federal government and the private sector to dramatically increase the success of high-growth entrepreneurs, who are creating jobs and fueling innovation across the country.  To help increase their success, the White House-led Startup America initiative has rolled out new policies to benefit fledgling companies (including new efforts to attract and retain immigrant entrepreneurs) in tandem with the independent Startup America Partnership, which has been hard at work mobilizing the private sector to “raise the entrepreneurial game of the United States.”

    Today the Startup America Partnership announced two major new developments.  First, they appointed their first slate of founding board members, who represent some of America’s most successful entrepreneurs.  The board includes Fred Smith, who came up with the idea for FedEx in a college economics class; Lynn Jurich, who grew SunRun into one of the nation’s leading home solar companies in just the last four years; and Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who has built up Magic Johnson Enterprises and the Magic Johnson Foundation since retiring from the NBA.  The full current roster of board members includes:

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