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Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

  • Building Partnerships to Promote Job Skills Development

    Posted by Kumar Garg on August 23, 2011 at 12:47 PM EDT

    Today, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan helped unveil a new public-private partnership between Discovery Communications and Montgomery College aimed at equipping students with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in today’s workforce. 

    The partnership, created in response to President Obama’s Skills for America’s Future initiative announced last October, will feature internships, guest lecturers, resume development, and other programs designed to teach students the marketable job skills sought by employers today.

    As part of his American Graduation Initiative, the President set a goal of having an additional 5 million community college graduates by 2020, including students who earn certificates and associate degrees or who continue on to graduate from four-year colleges and universities.  Public-private partnerships like the one announced today will play a key role in this effort.

    And this new effort is part of Discovery’s Discover Your Skills, a larger skills-focused initiative announced by Discovery and Dirty Jobs architect and host Mike Rowe in May.  Discover Your Skills includes an online resource—developed in collaboration with Skills for America’s Future, the Department of Education, and the Department of Labor—to provide unemployed and underemployed Americans with access to resources for obtaining marketable job skills and expertise and to raise awareness of career opportunities.

    In addition to the partnership, Discovery announced a series of eight public service announcements that will start airing August 29 aimed at highlighting career opportunities in the skilled trades and the importance of training workers to fill critical jobs in manufacturing, health care, energy, technology, construction and other industries.  These and other materials can be viewed here. 

    Thank you to Discovery and Montgomery College and to the many other partners who have heeded the President’s call to action for ensuring America’s students are prepared for the global economy that awaits them.

    Kumar Garg is a Senior Advisor to the Deputy Director for Policy at OSTP

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  • NASA Developing New Technologies for Deep Space Travel

    Posted by Bobby Braun and Tom Kalil on August 22, 2011 at 2:32 PM EDT

    NASA Solar Sail

    Above is an artist's rendering of a four-quadrant solar sail propulsion system. At 38 meters per side, the space solar sail announced today as one of NASA's Technology Demonstration Missions is seven times larger than any other sail flown in space and has the possibility to enable propellant-less deep space missions. (NASA)

    Today, NASA announced the selection of three Technology Demonstration Missions that will transform our nation’s space communications, deep space navigation, and in-space propulsion capabilities. These missions will develop and fly a space-based optical communications system, a deep space atomic clock, and a space solar sail—technologies crucial for America’s ability to travel into deep space.

    With data rates up to 100 times greater than today’s systems, optical communication will enable rapid return of the huge amounts of data associated with sending spacecraft and humans to new frontiers.

    High-performance atomic clocks, 10-times more accurate than today’s systems, will enable a level of spacecraft navigation precision and autonomous operations in deep space never before achieved.

    At 38 meters per side, the space solar sail being developed is seven times larger than any other sail flown in space, four times larger than what can be tested in ground-based facilities, and has the possibility to enable many kinds of new space missions, including those relevant to solar flare activity, orbital debris removal, or propellant-less deep space missions.

    NASA's space technology pipeline is already taking the ideas of our nation’s innovators from concept to flight.  In the past few months, over 100 competitively selected early-stage innovation awards were made through NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts and Space Technology Graduate Fellowships programs.

    Investments in research and technology are required to enable flight of NASA's future missions. These same missions drive and sharpen NASA's research and technology investment portfolio.

    For example, NASA’s advanced solar cell research enabled design of Juno, the first solar-powered outer-planet spacecraft, which launched towards Jupiter this month. On the International Space Station, a pathfinder robotic refueling experiment is underway. This joint NASA/Canadian Space Agency experiment is designed to prove the tools, technologies, and techniques needed to robotically repair and refuel satellites in orbit. With government investment in these foundational technology experiments, a commercial satellite servicing enterprise could emerge. NASA's next-generation robotics research also will help everyone from factory workers to astronauts carry out more complicated tasks—on Earth and in space.

    As he mentioned during his Twitter town hall, President Obama understands how important these efforts are for NASA: “What we need is that next technological breakthrough. … so what we’ve said is, rather than keep on doing the same thing, let’s invest in basic research around new technologies that can get us places faster, allow human space flight to last longer.... But in order to do that, we’re actually going to need some technological breakthroughs that we don’t have yet.”

    The Technology Demonstration Missions announced today are the beginning of NASA’s effort to break technological boundaries in space exploration.  NASA basic and applied research efforts build our nation’s technological capability, stimulate our global economic competitiveness, create jobs, and impact our daily lives. Today, there are space technology projects in development across all the NASA centers, academia, and industry. These innovations position NASA for a bright future.

    Bobby Braun is NASA Chief Technologist

    Tom Kalil is Deputy Director for Policy at OSTP

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  • Unleashing Teen Innovators at Libraries and Museums

    Posted by Lauren Andersen on August 19, 2011 at 4:12 PM EDT

    When President Obama launched his Educate to Innovate campaign—outlining a vision for moving American students from the middle to the top of the pack in math and science—he made one point clear:  “Our future is on the line.”

    It’s important to remember that education is not limited to just schools; that’s why libraries and museums are teaming up with teens outside of the classroom. Together, they’re working to build new and creative spaces across America that will provide young innovators with skills in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)—skills necessary to the nation’s future.

    Fueled by a partnership between the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the MacArthur Foundation, 25 learning labs will be created in libraries and museums across the country. Much like the Chicago Public Library’s YOUmedia Center, where high school teens can access thousands of books, over 100 laptop and desktop computers, and a variety of media creation tools and software, these labs will help students stretch their imaginations and develop indispensable new skills. These new environments will help teens prepare for work in the 21st century global economy, where problem solving, digital literacy, and critical thinking are basic requirements for an increasing number of jobs.

    Hundreds of U.S. libraries and museums are already on board and have taken the first step to learning about how this transformation is taking shape.  And there’s no need to wait for their arrival to get involved. Visit your local library or museum today, or enter your zip code at the Connect a Million Minds “Connectory” to search for programs and opportunities in your neighborhood.

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  • Participate in a Robotics Competition—in Space!

    Posted by Chuck Thorpe on August 15, 2011 at 1:08 PM EDT

    What could possibly make an already super cool robotics competition even better? The zero-gravity environment of space!

    NASA and DARPA, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, TopCoder, and Aurora Flight Sciences, recently announced the Zero Robotics competition, an event open to all high schools in the United States that form a team and complete the application process.

    Zero Robotics is a student software competition that takes the idea of a robotics competition to new heights—literally.  The robots are basketball-sized satellites called SPHERES, and they look like something straight out of Star Wars.  The competition is kicked off by a challenging problem conjured up by DARPA and NASA.  After multiple rounds of simulation and ground competition, a final tournament will be held onboard the International Space Station!  The 27 finalists will have their robotic programs run by an astronaut in the microgravity environment of space.

    The goal is to build critical engineering skills for students, such as problem solving, design thought process, operations training, and team work. Teams participate by programming a SPHERES satellite using a simplified programming environment to achieve the game objectives while competing or collaborating with other contestants.  The tournament stages during the fall season give the teams an opportunity to develop and improve their programs and test them with and against the other teams.

    This competition embodies three initiatives that are priorities of the Obama Administration:

    • President Obama’s “Educate to Innovate” campaign, which was launched with the goal of improving the participation and performance of America’s students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM);
    • Using challenges to increase participation or achieve progress in a certain area of need;
    • And the President’s recently announced National Robotics Initiative, focused on strengthening the robotics capabilities of our Nation.

    All three of these initiatives involve the Federal government, educational institutions, and private corporations working together on America’s science and engineering challenges.

    If you are interested in participating in Zero Robotics this fall but haven’t already sent in an application, the deadline for teams to apply is September 5.  The application is available online at http://zerorobotics.mit.edu.

    So if you think that robotics is cool, and space is cool, then get involved in the 2011 Zero Robotics Challenge. You, your child, or your student could control a satellite in space!

    Chuck Thorpe is Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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  • Working Together to Keep American Science and Technology No. 1

    Posted by Kei Koizumi on August 11, 2011 at 5:10 PM EDT

    Yesterday, OSTP Director John Holdren and Deputy Director for Policy Tom Kalil hosted a meeting with science and technology (S&T) community leaders. The gathering, held at the White House Conference Center, provided an opportunity to share perspectives on how the current fiscal and policy environment may affect the Nation’s science and engineering enterprise.

    Dr. Holdren thanked the representatives from the science and technology organizations for their longstanding efforts to sustain the public-private partnership in science and engineering that has kept the US’s innovation engine the strongest in the world. Dr. Holdren reiterated the Obama Administration’s commitment to protecting Federal investments in research and education in the recent budget agreement and in future budgets. In doing so, he noted the President’s remarks after signing the budget bill last week:

    “We can’t make it tougher for young people to go to college, or ask seniors to pay more for health care, or ask scientists to give up on promising research …”

    In his 2011 State of the Union address and the 2012 Budget he put forth, the President announced his committment to winning the future through investments in innovation, education, and infrastructure within a fiscally responsible framework.  That commitment has been evident in recent weeks as the Administration launched the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, a National Robotics Initiative, and a Materials Genome Initiative, and as the Administration made progress toward building a proposed nationwide interoperable wireless public safety broadband network, an important component of the President’s Wireless Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative.

    Staff from OSTP and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) explained the impact the budget agreement is likely to have on Federal support of research and development (R&D) and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education.  We were delighted to hear how scientists and engineers around the country are reaching out to their communities to engage the public in their work; expanding their dialogue with local businesses and entrepreneurs to accelerate the movement of ideas from the lab to the marketplace; and nurturing the scientific and technical talent the United States needs to remain competitive in the 21st century global economy.

    The organizations that joined OSTP, OMB, and other Federal science agencies in this discussion included:

    • Council of Scientific Society Presidents
    • Alliance for Science & Technology Research in America
    • American Association for the Advancement of Science
    • American Chemical Society
    • Microsoft
    • Amgen
    • Woodrow Wilson Center
    • Materials Research Society
    • IBM
    • American Physical Society
    • Technology CEO Council
    • Association of American Universities
    • Council of Graduate Schools
    • Task Force on the Future of American Innovation
    • Geological Society of America
    • Consortium of Social Science Associations
    • Semiconductor Industry Association
    • Texas Instruments

    Kei Koizumi is the Assistant Director for Federal R&D at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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  • Scientific Integrity Policies Submitted to OSTP

    Posted by Rick Weiss on August 11, 2011 at 3:15 PM EDT

    Federal departments and agencies are making good progress on the development of scientific integrity policies, as initially called for by OSTP director John Holdren in a December 2010 Executive Branch memorandum. Some 19 Federal entities had submitted either draft or final policies as of last week, the deadline Dr. Holdren had set for draft submissions.

    That number is smaller than the 30 agencies and departments that had responded in April to an OSTP call for progress reports, but it includes the full spectrum of departments and agencies that had responded at that time. The smaller number reflects the fact that some departments have since decided to develop policies that will apply broadly to a number of their daughter agencies.

    For example, the Department of Defense is developing a policy that will apply to several branches that had initially been tallied individually, and the Department of Health and Human Services’ draft policy will apply to multiple components that Dr. Holdren had initially contacted individually, including the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health.

    Over time, some individual agencies covered by their parent departments’ policies are expected to follow up with policies of their own with additional elements specific to their missions. Indeed, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)—components of the Department of Commerce—are already developing their own policies, which will complement the overarching policy that Commerce has already developed for all of its components. But the 19 policies received by OSTP last week—along with three others that are going through agency clearances and are expected to be delivered to OSTP soon—cover all the Federal entities described by OSTP in its April 21st update.

    Dr. Holdren’s latest directive of May 5 had asked that agencies and departments submit drafts of their policies by last week. However, five Federal entities went further and submitted final policies. The five were NASA (with plans to make modest changes by fall); the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and Interior (which had finished and submitted its policy earlier this year); and the Intelligence Communities represented by the Director of National Intelligence.

    OSTP also received 13 draft policies—from NOAA; the National Science Foundation; the Environmental  Protection Agency; the Social Security Administration; the Veterans Administration; and the Departments of  Agriculture, Defense, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Transportation.

    In addition, OSTP has crafted a draft policy that would apply to its activities and is under consideration for adoption by the Council on Environmental Quality. OSTP is also working with the Office of Management and Budget to ensure that all relevant offices within the Executive Office of the President will be covered by an appropriate policy.

    Finally, the Department of State and the US Agency for International Development have notified OSTP that their respective draft policies are in clearance and will be submitted soon, while Commerce has notified OSTP that NIST’s policy is under development.

    OSTP appreciates the hard work agencies and departments have devoted to the important task of codifying their commitments to scientific integrity, and will be working with them this fall as they finalize their policies. At the same time, it’s important to remember that scientific integrity has been a firm commitment from the earliest days of this Administration—as evidenced by the President’s 2009 memorandum, which expressed the basic principles of integrity expected of all agencies, as well as by the extraordinary scientists the Administration has brought on board, the budgets it has proposed, and the evidence-based policies it has supported.

    The steps taken by these departments and agencies are a big step forward to ensuring scientific integrity across the Federal government.