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Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

  • U.S. Unveils Initiative to Monitor and Manage Forest Carbon Dynamics

    Posted by Rick Weiss on November 3, 2010 at 9:39 AM EDT

    OSTP’s Associate Director for Environment Shere Abbott today announced details of an innovative new U.S.-sponsored program called SilvaCarbon, designed to strengthen global capacity to understand, monitor, and manage forest and terrestrial carbondynamics—an essential element in the effort to combat climate change.

    Abbott made the announcement in Beijing, where she is leading the U.S. delegation and serving as co-chair for the Seventh Plenary meeting of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), a voluntary partnership of governments and international organizations committed to implementing a coordinated response to global environmental stresses.

    SilvaCarbon, named after the Latin word for forest, will bring together a community of U.S. scientists and technical experts from government, academia, non-governmental organizations, and industry into a network that will support efforts to improve access to Earth observation data about forests.  It is a key element in the Administration’s comprehensive strategy for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks in developing countries.

    “The science of how forests store carbon, both above ground and in the soil, is of profound importance and requires further monitoring and investigation,” Abbott said. “We want to cooperate more closely with our partners in GEO in this area, to protect and make most effective use of our forests, to avoid harmful deforestation and land-degradation, and to better understand how forests store and release carbon and other greenhouse gases.”

    For more information about SilvaCarbon, see OSTP’s press release.

    [Ed. Note: The title of this blog has been changed.]

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  • 10 Years of Humans at International Space Station

    Posted by Phil Larson on November 2, 2010 at 3:47 PM EDT

    Today marks a global milestone—10 years of human presence aboard the International Space Station (ISS). In addition to the 10-year achievement, last week saw the ISS become the longest continuously inhabited spacecraft by exceeding the Mir space station’s record of 3,644 days. Mir was deorbited in March 2001.

    With this milestone under their (asteroid) belts, NASA and its international partners are looking ahead to the next 10 years. Under President Obama’s plan for NASA and the recent passage of the NASA Authorization bill, the ISS—which had been due to be scuttled halfway through the next decade—is now set to serve as an orbiting workspace and gravity-free domicile until at least 2020.

    As President Obama said in his visit to Kennedy Space Center back in April:

    “[W]e will extend the life of the International Space Station likely by more than five years, while actually using it for its intended purpose:  conducting advanced research that can help improve the daily lives of people here on Earth, as well as testing and improving upon our capabilities in space.  This includes technologies like more efficient life support systems that will help reduce the cost of future missions.  And in order to reach the space station, we will work with a growing array of private companies competing to make getting to space easier and more affordable. ”

    So while a decade of human occupation of the ISS was an extraordinary accomplishment in its own right, the next 10 years promise to be even more exciting.

    Congratulations to the crew of six currently on orbit and to all the crews and teams on the ground that have contributed to the success of the ISS! The potential that this unique and magnificent laboratory has is just now being unlocked.

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  • No Input is Too Small: Comment on National Nanotechnology Initiative’s Strategic Plan

    Posted by Travis Earles on November 1, 2010 at 12:07 PM EDT

    Starting today, public comment is being accepted on the draft Strategic Plan for the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), which is posted at the NNI Strategy Portal.  The NNI is an interagency program for coordinating Federal research and development in nanotechnology, which is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers.  At these super small scales, unique phenomena emerge, enabling the development of materials and devices with novel applications.  Research in nanoscale science and engineering has the potential to bring about new nanotechnology innovations, such as improving how we collect and store energy, reinforce materials, sense contaminants, target drugs, and shrink and accelerate computational devices.

    The NNI Strategic Plan is the framework that underpins the nanotechnology work of 25 NNI member agencies. It aims to ensure that advances in nanotechnology R&D and their applications to agency missions continue unabated in this fledgling field. Its purpose is to facilitate achievement of the NNI vision by laying out targeted guidance for agency leaders, program managers, and the research community regarding planning and implementation of nanotechnology R&D investments and activities.

    Informed by feedback and recommendations from a broad array of stakeholders, the Strategic Plan represents the consensus of the participating agencies as to the high-level goals and priorities of the NNI and specific objectives for at least the next three years. It describes the four overarching goalsof the NNI, the major Program Component Areas established in 2004 to broadly track the categories of investments needed to ensure the NNI’s success (reported every year in the NNI Supplement to the President’s Budget), and the near-term objectives that will be the concrete steps taken toward collectively achieving the NNI goals and vision. Finally, the Plan describes collaborative interagency activities, including three Nanotechnology Signature Initiativesthat are part of a new model of specifically targeted and closely coordinated interagency, cross-sector collaboration designed to accelerate innovation in areas of national priority.

    You may review the draft Plan and submit comments of approximately one page or less (4,000 characters) from now until November 30, 2010.  Head on over to the NNI Strategy Portal or send your input to nnistrategy@ostp.gov. (Note: Please do not include in your comments information of a confidential nature, such as sensitive personal information or proprietary information. All public comments are subject to being made available for public inspection, including being posted here at the portal.)

    The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy appreciates your thoughtful comments on the draft, which will help to strengthen the final Plan. Thank you for your contributions as we work toward the NNI vision of a future in which the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale leads to a revolution in technology and industry that benefits society.

    Travis Earles is Assistant Director for Nanotechnology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

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  • Celebrating Science and Engineering on the National Mall

    Posted by Rick Weiss on October 25, 2010 at 3:59 PM EDT

    After joining President Obama in welcoming students to the White House Science Fair last Monday, OSTP Director John P. Holdren spent Saturday morning with fellow OSTP staffers and an estimated half-a-million other visitors on the National Mall, reveling in the USA Science and Engineering Festival. Under beautiful blue skies, science, mathematics, and engineering literally had their day in the sun, with more than 1,000 displays and demonstrations that educated, entertained, and inspired children and adults alike.

    Within minutes of our arrival at the Festival we came upon a familiar figure: Thomas Alva Edison, or at least a close facsimile, in the person of Frank Attwood, an Orlando-based self-described “actorpreneur.” Toting a tattered brown briefcase and with an ancient phonograph in tow, Attwood was buttonholing visitors and regaling them with tales of the all-American inventor, who so personified the kind of innovation that today continues to undergird our Nation’s social and economic strength.

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  • White House Council Launches Interagency Subcommittee on Privacy & Internet Policy

    Posted by Cameron Kerry and Christopher Schroeder on October 24, 2010 at 10:10 AM EDT

    As part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to promoting the vast economic opportunity of the Internet and protecting individual privacy, the National Science and Technology Council has launched a new Subcommittee on Privacy and Internet Policy. Populated by representatives from more than a dozen Departments, agencies and Federal offices, and co-chaired by the two of us, the subcommittee will develop principles and strategic directions with the goal of fostering consensus in legislative, regulatory, and international Internet policy realms.

    In this digital age, a thriving and dynamic economy requires Internet policies that promote innovation domestically and globally while ensuring strong and sensible protections of individuals’ private information and the ability of governments to meet their obligations to protect public safety.

    Recognizing the global nature of the digital economy and society, the Subcommittee will monitor and address global privacy policy challenges and develop approaches to meeting those challenges through coordinated U.S. government action.  The Subcommittee is committed to fostering dialogue and cooperation between our Nation and its key trading partners in support of flexible and robust privacy and innovation policies. Such policies are essential to the health of competitive marketplaces for online goods and services.

    The public policy direction developed by the Subcommittee will be closely synchronized to privacy practices in federal Departments and agencies, resulting in a comprehensive and forward-looking commitment to a common set of Internet policy principles across government.  These core principles include facilitating transparency, promoting cooperation, empowering individuals to make informed and intelligent choices, strengthening multi-stakeholder governance models, and building trust in online environments. 

    At the same time, the Subcommittee will work closely with private stakeholders to identify Internet policy principles that promote innovation and economic expansion, while also protecting the rule of law and individual privacy.  Throughout this process, the Subcommittee will endeavor to strike the appropriate balance between the privacy expectations of consumers and the needs of industry, law enforcement and other public-safety governmental entities, and other Internet stakeholders.

    The Subcommittee is made up of representatives from the following Federal agencies:  

    • Department of Commerce (Co-Chair)
    • Department of Justice (Co-Chair)
    • Department of Education
    • Department of Energy
    • Department of Health and Human Services
    • Department of Homeland Security
    • Department of State
    • Department of Transportation
    • Department of the Treasury
    • Small Business Administration
    • Other departments and agencies designated by the co-chairs. Of note, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission will be invited to participate. 

    The following organizations in the Executive Office of the President shall also be represented on the Subcommittee:

    • Domestic Policy Council
    • National Economic Council
    • National Security Council and National Security Staff
    • Office of Management and Budget
    • Office of Science and Technology Policy
    • United States Trade Representative
    • Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator
    • National Security Staff Cybersecurity Directorate

    Cameron Kerry is General Counsel at the Department of Commerce

    Christopher Schroeder is Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice

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  • That’s NFTE: Award-Winning Teen Entrepreneurs Visit Oval Office

    Posted by Phil Larson on October 12, 2010 at 6:07 PM EDT

    NFTE National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge

    President Barack Obama meets with the student finalists of the NFTE National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in the Oval Office. These students – four of who are still in high school – have all started new businesses and competed against 24,000 other young people in the competition. October 12, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

    President Obama is the first to recognize that not all good ideas come from adults, and that’s why for the second year in a row he offered his personal congratulations to the winners of a challenge organized by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).

    NFTE organizes the National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge and has for years helped young individuals from low-income communities unlock their potential for entrepreneurial creativity. In a show of his support for the youthful innovators of our Nation, President Obama—as he did for last year’s NFTE winners—welcomed the five young winners of this year’s competition to the White House for a meeting with him, where he not only congratulated them but also picked their innovative brains. View the full press release from NFTE here (pdf).

    The five winners of the Challenge are:

    • Nia Froome, a 17-year-old student from Valley Stream, NY, who won the grand prize for her business, Mamma Nia’s Vegan Bakery. Inspired by her mother’s battle with breast cancer, she says she plans to donate a portion of her winnings to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, in addition to investing in her business and education.
    • Bosnian immigrants Zermina Velic and Belma Ahmetovic, from Hartford, CT, who took First Runner-Up for their computer services company, Beta Bytes.
    • Crystal Vo of San Jose, CA, who won Second Runner-Up for her cake ball company, Sweet Tooth Bites,
    • Steven Gordon of Brooklyn, NY, who won NFTE’s first Online Elevator Pitch Challenge for his business, TattooID.

    Since NFTE began in 1987, more than 330,000 people have been part of the program, which has activities going on in 21 states and ten countries. 

    Kudos to this year’s winners!

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