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Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

  • Big Thanks to Leader of Small Science

    Posted by Rick Weiss on April 14, 2011 at 5:56 PM EDT

    Eight years ago this week, E. Clayton Teague took leave from his position at the National Institute of Standards and Technology to take the reins of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office. That’s the office that oversees the interagency process through which the United States ensures that its investments in nanotechnology—the promising field of the extremely small—are appropriately interwoven so as to accelerate the science and boost the Nation’s economy.

    It was a one-year assignment, which got extended to two, and then three, and then just kept going. Such is the fate of a public-service scientist-administrator who gets swept up in a fast-moving field of science with direct impacts on energy, electronics, materials science, optics, food and medicine, and national security, to mention just a few.

    Tomorrow, Clayton will step down as Director of the NNCO, an office that is overseen here at OSTP via the National Science and Technology Council. During his tenure, the interagency nanotechnology research program he oversaw—the National Nanotechnology Initiative, or NNI—grew from a modest experiment in shared investments by a handful of agencies to the booming model of interagency cooperation that it is today, involving 25 agencies and departments and with cumulative investments of some $14 billion in nanoscale science and engineering.  

    Clayton hit the ground running in 2003, being called upon to testify before a Senate committee within weeks of his appointment (the first of several such hearings over the years). He leaves without ever decelerating; today, on his penultimate day at NNCO, he made an appearance before the House Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, where he described the great distance nanotechnology has come in recent years and the progress it is expected to make in the years ahead, as summarized in the most recent edition of the NNI Strategic Plan.

    Thanks, Clayton, for all your work. It will be difficult for the smallest science to fill those big shoes.

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  • Joining Forces: Math, Science, and Military Families

    Posted by Rick Weiss on April 14, 2011 at 11:54 AM EDT

    First Lady Michelle Obama participates in a Math and Science Bowl

    First Lady Michelle Obama participates in a Math and Science Bowl at Fountain-Fort Carson High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., April 14, 2011. The First Lady and Dr. Biden attended the event to help bring awareness to the need for advanced placement courses in math and science at schools like Fountain-Fort Carson, which serves many military children. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

    It’s the ultimate military family battle, and it’s happening today at Fountain-Fort Carson High School in Colorado Springs. On one side are the parents—military personnel based at nearby Fort Carson. Challenging them are their kids—students at the high school, where about half the student population consists of military family children. And overseeing the battle—actually a parents-against-kids math and science competition—are First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, with a few scholarly pyrotechnics thrown in by Jamie Hyneman and Grant Imahara from the Discovery Channel program MythBusters.

    The event, sponsored in part by National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI), is part of a new White House initiative, Joining Forces, aimed at supporting and honoring America’s service members and their families. Launched at the White House on Tuesday, the initiative is focusing on a number of key areas including: beefing up science and math education at schools heavily populated by students from military families; improving health for military families; and focusing on training and jobs for members of the military and veterans.

    First Lady Michelle Obama participates in a Math and Science Bowl at Fountain-Fort Carson High School

    First Lady Michelle Obama participates in a Math and Science Bowl at Fountain-Fort Carson High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., April 14, 2011. The First Lady and Dr. Biden attended the event to help bring awareness to the need for advanced placement courses in math and science at schools like Fountain-Fort Carson, which serves many military children. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

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  • Tech Community SCOREs with Vet Entrepreneurs

    Posted by Aneesh Chopra on April 12, 2011 at 12:11 PM EDT

    Today, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden launched the Joining Forces Initiative to tap into our shared desire to support our service members and their families. To celebrate the moment, organizations from across the country have announced 26 new commitments, including a coalition led by SCORE to inaugurate the “Veterans Fast Launch” initiative.

    The premise is simple—with the right support tools, including mentorship, scholarships, and a package of free software resources, we can improve the success rate of veterans’ and their families’ ability to succeed as small business owners. Coalition partners contributing to the resource base include the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, AVG, Cisco, Constant Contact, docstoc.com, HP, Intacct.com, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, and Squareup.com.

    The Walmart Foundation will also provide military veterans and their families with scholarships to attend the SCORE “Simple Steps for Starting Your Business” series through 360 chapters across the Nation.

    All told, the Fast Launch team will help would-be entrepreneurs understand market demand, tech planning, website development, and innovative techniques to harness the power of technology in boosting financial performance. SCORE and its partners will assist 16,000 military veterans and their families and help launch 3,000 new businesses during the first year of the program.

    Please join me in celebrating this important endeavor. It is yet another example of how the tech community is organizing to expand the number of high growth entrepreneurs through the President’s “Startup America” initiative and its private sector partner, Startup America Partnership. We welcome your feedback on how to support our Nation’s entrepreneurs.

    Aneesh Chopra is U.S. Chief Technology Officer

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  • OSTP Advocates for Global Science

    Posted by Jason Rao on April 11, 2011 at 5:06 PM EDT

    Last week I attended the Global Science Forum (GSF) in Lisbon, Portugal, where I served as the U.S. Party Representative.  The GSF is an arm of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), headquartered in Paris, and OSTP has been active within GSF since its inception in 1999, leading U.S. agencies on a wide range of international science policy and programmatic issues.  

    The meeting, which included more than 40 delegates from 16 member nations—including my U.S. colleague Vanessa Richardson of the National Science Foundation—provided a forum for the design of pragmatic solutions to such problems as how to maximize the mutual benefits of engaging in scientific and technological cooperation with developing countries; how best to organize international collaboration on clinical trials; and how best to model shared risks on a global scale.  The discussions made clear that many of the greatest challenges faced by us in the United States and by our colleagues in other countries are truly global in nature and can only be solved through international cooperation.  GSF is a unique and potentially powerful mechanism to connect scientists and policy makers across the world to help us meet those challenges.  

    As part of that process,  I presented a brief update from OSTP on U.S. science policy as well as a more detailed report on an emerging GSF initiative led by the Smithsonian Institution called Scientific Collection—or  "SciColl," as it is known in the GSF.  SciColl is being developed as a key international coordination mechanism that will facilitate the creation of an online, interoperable system for sharing digital images of objects in collections around the world, with an initial emphasis on collections relating to the topics of climate change, human diseases spread by animals, food security, and human migration.  OSTP has been an advocate for this initiative and a strong supporter of the GSF in general, as it supports the President's vision of revitalizing international partnerships in science, technology, and innovation to address the greatest challenges we share in energy, environment, health, and global security.

    Jason Rao is a Senior Policy Analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology

  • DARPA Recruits World-Class Engineer to Lead Key Technology Office

    Posted by Tom Kalil on April 11, 2011 at 10:27 AM EDT

    On Friday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that they had successfully recruited Dr. Thomas Lee to serve as the Director of the Microsystems Technology Office.  This office has been responsible for critical breakthroughs in microelectronics, nanotechnology, and photonics with both defense and civilian applications.

    Dr. Lee is a leader in the field of computer chips for wireless technologies such as mobile phones, short-range wireless devices, and global positioning systems (GPS).  In addition to spending 17 years as a professor in electrical engineering at Stanford, Dr. Lee has also founded two high-tech companies.  And earlier this month he was awarded the Ho-Am Prize in Engineering, known as the “Korean Nobel.”

    Dr. Lee decided to come to DARPA because of his commitment to public service and because of the leadership of DARPA Director Dr. Regina Dugan and Deputy Director Dr. Kaigham Gabriel, who are empowering America’s best and brightest to take big risks in pursuit of America’s technological superiority.

    As Dr. Dugan noted in her recent testimony, DARPA has made a real effort to strengthen its ties with the academic community.  In the 5 years prior to 2009, the per year average number of university faculty and researchers hired to work as program managers at DARPA was two.  In 2010, it was 10, a five-fold increase.

    Congratulations to DARPA’s “army of technogeeks!”

    Tom Kalil is Deputy Director for Policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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  • A Business Guide to the Next Generation Internet Address

    Posted by Aneesh Chopra on April 8, 2011 at 11:36 AM EDT

    As we move to a world in which practically everything can be networked to everything else, we see more and more opportunities for innovation.  But these opportunities also poses a challenge: As more and more devices get connected to the Internet—including computers, smartphones, innovative cloud computing platforms, and smart-grid tools—each of them is going to require an Internet Protocol (IP) address. 

    That’s a lot of addresses, and that’s where IPv6 comes in.

    Internet Protocol version six, or IPv6, is an Internet addressing system designed to expand the number of available IP addresses.  This expansion is necessary because the current number of addresses under Internet Protocol version four (IPv4) is gradually being exhausted.  While IPv4 supports 4 billion addresses, IPv6 supports 340 trillion trillion trillion possible addresses.  As such it represents a new generation of technology that can support unprecedented network growth, development, and innovation.

    In recent months, the Administration has been working to highlight the importance of the adoption and deployment of IPv6.  We believe government can work in partnership with industry and other stakeholders to ensure that the technology that underpins the Internet continues to support innovation and economic growth.  Though the IPv6 transition doesn’t mean much for consumers right now—they can continue to use existing devices and IPv4 addresses—action and planning is needed by industry.

    Back in September, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) hosted an IPv6 workshop at which I challenged industry stakeholders to develop a tool to aid businesses and focus attention on the importance of deploying IPv6 within their companies.  Today, in response to my call, NTIA announced the release of just such a tool—an “IPv6 Readiness Tool” developed by industry and technical-community experts.  With the tool’s release, NTIA also renewed the call for businesses to prepare for the transition.

    The planning tool outlines IPv6 preparedness issues, such as the technical needs associated with deployment.  It is designed to help business leaders identify readiness issues and to bring these issues to the attention of senior corporate management to ensure successful IPv6 deployment and facilitate accelerated innovation.

    Though there is still much work to be done, this tool will help businesses focus on the importance of the transition to IPv6 and will support the Administration’s work to promote the adoption and deployment of IPv6 as part of our leadership for Internet innovation.

    Going forward, we will continue to work with industry stakeholders and encourage them to share best practices on IPv6 uptake so that all businesses can benefit.  We want to impress upon companies such as smart-phone and router manufactures, transport providers, and Internet service providers—as well as chief information and technology officers and their technical teams throughout the industry—that this is an issue that can be successfully handled with good planning.  I am confident that working together we will surely succeed, and the Internet will continue to be an engine of creativity, community, and economic growth.

    Aneesh Chopra is U.S. Chief Technology Officer

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