USA nodigt studenten uit te innoveren

Nieuws | de redactie

25 maart 2010 | De CTO van het Witte Huis, Aneesh Chopra, nodigt uit mee te denken en voorstellen te doen voor een nieuwe golf innovaties via breedband ontwikkeling, "applications which could drive demand for a gigabit/second Internet and 4G wireless." Dat moet vooral door en met studenten gebeuren.

Students have contributed (pdf) some of the most important advances ininformation and communications technologies, including datacompression, interactive computer graphics, Ethernet, BerkeleyUnix, the spreadsheet, public key cryptography, speech recognition,Mosaic, and Google.

Today, with the right kind of support, students can play the roleof innovators again, by leading the way in the development ofbroadband applications. In the same way that Mosaic and Googledrove demand for today’s Internet, new applications could drivedemand for a gigabit/second Internet and 4G wireless. Indeed, a keycomponent of the Federal Communications Commission’s recentlyreleased National Broadband Plan is the development ofnew broadband applications.

Now is the time to launch an initiative that would cultivate, withstudent involvement, such a wave of innovation. Although it’simpossible to predict what the next generation of applications willbe, universities, companies, and students could work together undersuch an initiative, which would serve as a sort of “Petri dish”where new ideas could incubate and grow.

This initiative could be led by the private sector, encouragemulti-campus and even global collaboration, build on investmentsalready made in high-speed research networks such as Internet2 andNationalLambdaRail, and take advantage of a growing number of grantsfrom the Department of Commerce’s Broadband TechnologyOpportunities Program (BTOP).

The initiative could have a number of elements, including:

-Campus-based incubators for the development of broadbandapplications, with access to high-speed networks, cutting-edgeperipherals, software development kits, and cloud computingservices.

-Relevant courses that encourage multidisciplinary teams ofstudents to design and develop broadband applications.

-Competitions that recognize compelling applications developed bystudents. Some existing competitions that could serve as modelsinclude Google’s Android Developer Challenge, Microsoft’s ImagineCup, and the FCC-Knight Foundation’s “Apps for Inclusion”competition.

Let us know what you think of this idea. You can send us e-mail atbroadband@ostp.gov.

Tom Kalil is Deputy Director for Policy in theWhite House Office of Science and Technology Policy.Aneesh Chopra is U.S. Chief Technology Officer and AssociateDirector for Technology in the White House Office of Science andTechnology Policy