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Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

  • Using Video Games to Solve Problems

    Posted by Matt Gaydos on April 15, 2012 at 9:19 AM EDT

    The 26th annual Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) that recently took place in San Francisco, CA included over 19,000 attendees in a multi-billion dollar industry that has established itself as a leader in fostering individuals’ use of creativity and technology to solve problems and entertain audiences world-wide. Each year, the GDC brings together thousands of artists, programmers, sound designers, producers, and business people from across generations and from around the world to share their knowledge of and passion for creating games. And while most focus solely on entertainment , some games, like Valve’s Portal 2 and that game company’s Journey, highlight the growing number of titles in this space that resonate with educational and national goals such as STEM education or collaboration.

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  • Grand Challenges ... and What If?

    Posted by Phil Larson on April 12, 2012 at 8:59 AM EDT

    This morning, OSTP Deputy Director for Policy Tom Kalil is giving remarks at the Grand Innovation Challenges of the 21st Century event in Washington, DC.

    Click here to watch the 9am-1030am ET webcast.

    Click here to read Tom's prepared remarks and here for his presentation.

    This July, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will convene a conference on Grand Challenges—ambitious goals on a national or global scale that capture the imagination and demand advances in innovation and breakthroughs in science and technology.  Grand Challenges are an important element of President Obama’s Strategy for American Innovation.

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  • Delivering on Manufacturing Innovation

    Posted by David Hart on April 11, 2012 at 10:13 AM EDT

    Last month, the President asked Congress to create a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation made up of up to 15 Institutes for Manufacturing Innovation around the United States.  He also stated his intention to launch a Pilot Institute using existing resources from the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Commerce, and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

    The President was speaking at the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CCAM), which will open soon near Richmond, Virginia.  CCAM is an example of the kind of partnership that the National Network would create on a much larger scale and that the Pilot Institute would demonstrate.  It involves big and small companies, leading universities, and the state of Virginia and will perform research and development, train students and workers for advanced manufacturing careers, and deliver new "production-ready" solutions to existing factories.

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  • Identifying Steps Forward in Use of Prizes to Spur Innovation

    Posted by Tom Kalil and Cristin Dorgelo on April 10, 2012 at 8:59 AM EDT

    Today OSTP released a comprehensive report detailing the use of prizes and competitions by agencies to spur innovation and solve grand challenges. Those efforts have expanded in recent months under the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, which granted all Federal agencies authority to conduct prize competitions to spur innovation, solve tough problems, and advance their core missions.

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  • 21st Century Grand Challenges

    Posted by Cristin Dorgelo and Tom Kalil on April 9, 2012 at 3:43 PM EDT

    This July, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will convene a conference on Grand Challenges—ambitious goals on a national or global scale that capture the imagination and demand advances in innovation and breakthroughs in science and technology.  Grand Challenges are an important element of President Obama’s Strategy for American Innovation.

    An example of a past Grand Challenge was the sequencing of the entire human genome that, according to one recent study, has contributed to the U.S. economy more than $140 for every $1 invested by the Federal government.  The Department of Energy is leading the way in Clean Energy Grand Challenges with “SunShot,” an initiative to make solar energy as cheap as coal, and “EV Everywhere,” an initiative announced by President Obama last month to make electric vehicles as affordable and convenient to own as today’s gasoline-powered vehicles.  The US Agency for International Development has a series of Grand Challenges for Development, including “Saving Lives at Birth,” which aims to increase access to health care for pregnant women and newborns in the developing world by at least 50 percent, and the “All Children Reading” initiative to givestudents in low-income countries basic reading skills by the time they leave primary school.

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  • Update: Deadline for Summer Jobs+ Code Sprint Extended

    Posted by Brian Forde on April 6, 2012 at 6:22 PM EDT

    We are overwhelmed by the excitement that the first White House Code Sprint has generated in the developer community so we have decided to extend the deadline by one week. You now have until Monday, April 16th to submit your apps.

    We're looking forward to seeing your ingenuity shine through the development of innovative apps and encourage you to be creative and mashup the Summer Jobs+ API with other popular APIs. It may be helpful to think through the decision process someone goes through when looking for an internship or job. You could imagine that estimating the time and cost to get to and from different internship or job opportunities would be valuable when choosing where you want to apply. If the job posting doesn't have an address you may be able to use a third party API to determine it with the company name and city. Most importantly have fun and be innovative!

    <geekspeak>The initial feedback we've heard from developers is that looking through the SDKs at http://developer.dol.gov/ was helpful in learning how to use the APIs and that many are looking to use the SDKs to jump start their projects. The Department of Labor is working on updating the SDKs with the latest information for the Summer Jobs+ API. Lastly, when working with the API please note that all string parameters must be surrounded in single quotes including the format parameter.</geekspeak>

    Brian Forde is Advisor to the CTO on Mobile and Data Innovation

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