WhiteHouse.gov Blog Feed: Office of Science and Technology Policy

Space Community Leaders on Historic Berthing of Dragon to the International Space Station

Fri, 25 May 2012 16:29:36 +0000

Today, history was made in space. For the first time, an American private spacecraft is now docked at the International Space Station. Dr. Holdren, the President’s science and technology advisor, issued a statement on “a key milepost in President Obama’s vision for America’s continued leadership in space.”

Below are some additional thoughts from leaders in the space community:

Statements from Space Community Leaders on Successful Berthing of the
Dragon Spacecraft with the International Space Station

Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 astronaut:

“This week’s successful launch and delivery of logistics supplies to the International Space Station by a US commercial space company, reminds us that where the entrepreneurial interests of the private sector are aligned with NASA’s mission to explore, America wins. Falcon 9’s maiden flight to ISS – and the other commercial space launches that lie ahead - represent the dawn of a new era in space exploration. Nearly 43 years after we first walked on the moon, we have taken another step in demonstrating continued American leadership in space.”

Norm Augustine, retired Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin:

“Successes in commercial space transportation are not only important in their own right, they also free NASA to do that which it does best...namely, push the very frontiers of space and knowledge.”

Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group:

“Congratulations are truly in order for SpaceX and NASA on this historic moment. Elon, Gwynne and the team have poured their heart and soul into the Dragon and it has paid off in stunning success. Everyone who is working to push forward the space frontier recognizes that such a mission is a massive challenge, and I join the world in lauding this important accomplishment. I believe this new era in spaceflight will open the benefits of space to dramatically more people and activities, saving the government needed funds while enabling NASA to explore the destinations we have longed dreamed of.”

Wes Bush, Chairman, CEO and President, Northrop Grumman Corporation:

“Congratulations to NASA and SpaceX on the successful launch of Falcon 9 and docking of Dragon to the International Space Station. The development of new commercial launch services that will free up NASA's resources for ambitious new projects beyond low Earth orbit is an important step forward in the space enterprise. This represents new business opportunities for many companies, and a continuation of America's leadership in space and the pursuit of new frontiers."

Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman/CEO of X PRIZE Foundation, Co-Chairman of Planetary Resources, Inc.:

“The success of SpaceX/Dragon shows us that the most exciting days of the American Space Age is ahead of us. American entrepreneurship and capitalism has driven the extraordinary world we enjoy with computers, internet, mobile. The success that Elon Musk and the entire SpaceX/Dragon team has demonstrated this week should give everyone confidence that these same drivers will help guarantee that the most vibrant period of human space exploration is before us.”

Frank DiBello, President and CEO of Space Florida:

“History requires special moments and today was one of them. As when the rails from east and west were joined to create the transcontinental railroad in 1869 and truly opened up the United States, so too did today’s linking of Dragon and the ISS symbolize the opening of space to the power and innovation of private commerce. “

Sandy Johnson, President and CEO of Barrios Technology:

“Congratulations to everyone at SpaceX and NASA for this ‘giant leap for mankind’ moment. The successful docking of the Dragon capsule to the ISS demonstrates our nation’s continued support of the American dream. This is a significant step to commercializing access to low earth orbit – opening up a new market for our best and brightest entrepreneurs. And it allows NASA to focus on the human and robotic exploration of our solar system – charting new paths forward with the resultant benefits to our nation and the world.”

Joanne Maguire, Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co.:

"We at Lockheed Martin congratulate NASA and SpaceX on demonstrating the feasibility of this new complementary means of cargo delivery to ISS. As commercial partners in spaceflight with NASA from its earliest days, we appreciate the significance of this long awaited first step."

Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society:

"Today the SpaceX capsule that launched atop the Falcon 9 rocket matched its speed with the orbiting International Space Station. American astronauts reached out and grasped the capsule with the station's robotic arm and docked it to the air-lock. I encourage everyone to take a moment and consider just how hard this sort of thing is. This is a huge step, a milestone, enabling cheaper, more reliable access to space. Investments like this, where the private sector and government work together on technical challenges, strengthens our economy by making advanced technology and innovation part of our culture. While Earth orbit is vital, keep in mind that visionaries like Elon Musk have in mind a human journey to Mars to look for signs of water and life. Discoveries like these on another world will change this world forever. With the success of commercial partnerships like this, NASA will have the resources to reach farther and deeper into the cosmos so that we may all further know and appreciate our place in space."

Rusty Schweickart, Apollo 9 astronaut:

“The arrival and docking of the Dragon space capsule at the ISS is more than historic. It is, in fact, the beginning of a new era in space exploration, one in which private industry and individual initiative will begin leading the way in the use of near-space activity. This is not only exciting and momentous, but is fully in keeping with the American character of risk taking and consequent reward. The long term results of this “first” are beyond our ability to see at the beginning of this era, but there is no doubt that it will serve as a huge incentive for young people who now have firm evidence of the value, and opportunity for individual initiative. Near-Earth space is now firmly a regular part of the human environment along with the air, water, and land. The future is now, once again, opened to imagination, creativity, and dreams!”

Mark Sirangelo, Corporate Vice President and head of Sierra Nevada Corporation Space System:
"Sierra Nevada Corporation congratulates SpaceX on their successful docking of the Dragon Cargo Capsule to the International Space Station. This achievement illustrates the power of NASA-funded U.S. competition to fill the domestic capabilities lost with the retirement of the Space Shuttle."

Steve Squyres, Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University, and Chairman of the NASA Advisory Council:

“SpaceX is an American original. Two days ago I watched the joyful reaction of their young and passionate workforce as they learned that their latest Falcon 9 launch had successfully deployed a Dragon spacecraft into orbit. Today they met their toughest milestone yet, with the berthing of that same Dragon at the International Space Station. This is a landmark accomplishment, beginning a new era in space -- the dawn of private enterprise on the new frontier. And the beauty of it is that it's just the beginning. SpaceX is the first, but others will follow, bringing new capabilities, driving down costs, and making things possible that have never been possible before. “

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The Dragon Spacecraft has Berthed with the International Space Station

Fri, 25 May 2012 16:28:30 +0000

Following today's historic berthing of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to the U.S. Harmony module of the International Space Station, John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, issued the following statement:

For the first time, a private American company has successfully launched a spacecraft into orbit and berthed it with the International Space Station—an achievement of historic scientific and technological significance and a key milepost in President Obama’s vision for America’s continued leadership in space.

That is exactly what the President had in mind when he laid out a fresh course for NASA to explore new scientific frontiers and take Americans ever deeper into our Solar System while relying on private-sector innovators—working in the competitive free market—to ferry astronauts and cargo to Low Earth Orbit and the International Space Station. It’s essential we maintain such competition and fully support this burgeoning and capable industry to get U.S. astronauts back on American launch vehicles as soon as possible.

I could not be prouder of our scientists and engineers—both government and private sector employees—who have contributed to this historic mission. A passion for discovery and a sense for adventure have always driven this Nation forward, and I join all Americans in watching what future possibilities are enabled by today’s great achievement.

Student Winners Create Games for Learning

Cristin Dorgelo — Thu, 24 May 2012 20:40:30 +0000

The second annual National STEM Video Game Challenge concluded on Tuesday with winners being honored at The Atlantic’s Technologies in Education Forum in Washington, DC.

Launched last fall in partnership with Digital Promise and with White House support, the Challenge has been an exciting and fun competition to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and to stimulate “systems thinking” in youth by encouraging them not just to play games but to create their own games for learning.

At an awards ceremony held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Monday, 28 middle- and high-school student winners from 11 states and the District of Columbia were lauded for their accomplishments and creativity.

From a bottle that battles gum en route to the recycling center to a fresh take on the traditional block challenge that requires players to maneuver objects around the screen, the winning projects – selected from more than 3700 entries – reflect both a wide range of interest in STEM topics and a grasp of methods for designing learning games.

And who has a better understanding of the most effective ways to challenge and interest students in tackling STEM topics and systems thinking than the teachers who work with them every day? So this year, for the first time, educators were invited to submit designs for games to teach critical STEM skills, along with college and graduate students in game-design academic programs and the challenge’s core participants: 5^th-through-12^th graders. Three teachers from Georgia, Michigan, and California were honored on Tuesday at The Atlantic’s Forum for applying their classroom expertise to developing games that both educate and entertain, as were collegiate winners from Purdue and the College of the Redwoods and the 28 grade-school awardees. The winning games demonstrated a variety of approaches to teaching math—including a train, a cosmic chain, blocks, and bingo—as well as resource conservation.

OSTP’s Deputy Director for Policy Tom Kalil congratulated the students and teachers at Tuesday’s event for the “remarkable games” they had developed, and thanked the Challenge’s sponsors. “Well-designed video games can help students excel in STEM and have fun doing it,” he said.

The National STEM Video Game Challenge is anannual competition held by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and E-Line Media in partnership with a variety of corporate partner organizations. For a fun video about the Challenge, visit http://youtu.be/3m9nMSJGpDQ.

Cristin Dorgelo is Assistant Director for Grand Challenges in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Healthy Food, Digital Tools at G8 Food Security Events

Hillary Chen — Thu, 24 May 2012 18:10:42 +0000

In advance of the G8 Summit at Camp David last weekend, President Obama joined four African Heads of State, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, private-sector leaders, and Bono from the band U2 and the ONE Campaign at the 3rd Annual Symposium on Global Agriculture and Food Security. Hosted by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the symposium highlighted the pressing issue of global food security.

At the event, President Obama launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which aims to drive inclusive agricultural growth and raise 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years by aligning:

the commitments of Africa’s leadership to drive effective country plans and policies for food security;
the commitments of private-sector partners to increase investments where the conditions are right; and
the commitments of the G8 to expand Africa’s potential for rapid and sustainable agricultural growth.

The world’s population is projected to increase to more than 9 billion people by 2050, requiring up to a 70% increase in global agricultural production. Nearly one billion people—more than 1 in 7 people in the world—already suffer from chronic hunger. With increased population pressure and a changing climate, food will have to be produced with less water and land. That food will also need to be highly nutritious; providing empty calories—particularly to pregnant women and young children—can result in permanent mental and physical impairment.

A few highlights from the G8 and African leaders’ commitments that are most relevant to science, technology, and innovation include:

Crop research. G8 and African countries, in partnership with the private sector and civil society, will focus on deployment of high-impact crops. Crops will be evaluated on a number of factors, including yield, nutritional value, and resilience in a hotter, drier climate.
Nutrition. The first 1,000 days of a person’s life (from conception through age 2) represent a critical nutrition window that has lifelong impacts. Commitments included development and deployment of healthier crops, as well as support for the international Scaling Up Nutrition movement.
Digital technologies and data innovators. A tremendous amount of data exists that could help strengthen agriculture systems in the developing world. G8 and African countries will focus on making data in areas such as weather, crops, and markets more available, and launch an information and communications technology innovation challenge that will focus on the use of digital technologies to strengthen agriculture extension systems.

Speaking at the symposium, President Obama said: “As the wealthiest nation on Earth, I believe the United States has a moral obligation to lead the fight against hunger and malnutrition, and to partner with others.” The New Alliance is an important part of the United States living up to this obligation.

Hillary Chen is Senior Advisor for Global Development to the Deputy Director for Policy at OSTP

Nominate Your Mentor for the Presidential Award in Science, Math, and Engineering Mentoring

Nafeesa Owens — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:12:24 +0000

Do you know someone who has been an excellent example, role model, and mentor to others in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines? If so, consider nominating them for the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM).

PAESMEM recognizes outstanding mentoring efforts that enhance the participation and retention of students and early-career investigators in STEM disciplines, with a special emphasis on those who might not otherwise have considered or had access to opportunities in STEM fields, including women, minorities, and persons with disabilities.

Mentors are more than teachers. They are in many cases personal examples of success who have special capacities to inspire. As President Obama remarked during his recent commencement address at Barnard College: “Never underestimate the power of your example. Think about what that means to a young Latina girl when she sees a Cabinet secretary that looks like her. Think about what it means to a young girl walking in Harlem right down the street when she sees a U.N. ambassador who looks like her. Do not underestimate the power of your example.”

The President had special words for students who majored in the STEM disciplines, saying “If you earned your degree in areas where we need more women -- like computer science or engineering -- reach back and persuade another student to study it, too. If you're going into fields where we need more women, like computer engineering -- reach back, hire someone new. Be a mentor. Be a role model.”

Last year, 17 mentors were recognized with the PAESMEM for their service. They met with President Obama in the Oval Office and were honored in a White House ceremony with White House Office and Science and Technology Policy Director John P. Holdren and NSF Director Subra Suresh.

Nominations for individuals or organizations, including self-nominations, will be accepted until June 6, 2012. Organizational nominees must be affiliated with an U.S. educational institution, U.S. corporation, or not-for-profit organization. Submissions are accepted through Grants.gov and the National Science Foundation’s FastLane system. For more information, please visit the PAESMEM webpage at NSF.

Unlocking the Power of Energy Data

Todd Park, Jason Bordoff, and Dave Danielson — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:00:56 +0000

The U.S. Government, as well as the private sector, is sitting on a vast – and in many cases, untapped – supply of energy data. Sets of data aren’t what most people think of when we talk about safely and responsibly developing American energy resources such as wind, solar, oil, and gas. But data are also essential components of the President’s all-of-the-above energy strategy. To help harness the power of these data through a combination of technology and ingenuity, the Obama Administration has launched the Energy Data Initiative (EDI). The goal of EDI is to drive entrepreneurs to use data to create tools that can help Americans save money on utility bills and at the pump – by, for example, virtually identifying cost-effective retrofits or delivering route- and vehicle-optimization tips to improve fuel efficiency. In doing so, this will generate a rising tide of innovation that can help grow the economy and create jobs.

To kick off the EDI, this week the White House and U.S. Department of Energy participated in an “Energy Data Jam” in Silicon Valley. This workshop brought together a group of America’s most innovative entrepreneurs, software developers, CEOs, energy experts, and policy makers to take advantage of existing and newly available government data to spark new private-sector consumer-facing and business-oriented tools, products, and services – think smart phone apps – all while rigorously protecting personal, proprietary, and national security information.

Standardizing and liberating energy data empowers consumers and businesses and spurs innovation. We’re building on work already under way – such as the Green Button initiative, where utilities and service providers serving more than 30 million customers have committed to providing easy access to personal, secure, understandable energy usage data in a common, machine-readable format. And the Department of Energy has been running an Apps for Energy contest and managing an $8 million grant-funding opportunity to help consumers better manage their energy consumption through improved access to energy data. Both the contest winners and grant recipients were announced today.

Led by the Energy Department in collaboration with other Departments and the White House, the EDI commits the Administration to release additional data resources in computer-readable form, and calls upon private-sector organizations to voluntarily give consumers secure access to their own energy use data. As similar efforts in health and public safety have demonstrated, data from various government and non-government sources can literally fuel new companies, new products, and new features that can improve Americans’ lives.

Our communities, our economy, and our environment all stand to benefit as we move forward with the EDI to unlock datathat can lead us to new ways to save energy and money, reduce pollution, provide energy services, and create jobs to ensure an American economy that is built to last.

Todd Park is the U.S. Chief Technology officer and Assistant to the President

Jason Bordoff is the Associate Director for Energy and Climate Change at the White House Council on Environmental Quality and a Senior Advisor for Energy and Environmental Policy at the National Economic Council

David Danielson is the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy

Statement from the White House on the Falcon 9 Launch

Tue, 22 May 2012 08:18:47 +0000

Following Tuesday's launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, issued the following statement:

Statement by John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, on Launch of Falcon 9 Rocket and Dragon Spacecraft

"Congratulations to the teams at SpaceX and NASA for this morning’s successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Every launch into space is a thrilling event, but this one is especially exciting because it represents the potential of a new era in American spaceflight. Partnering with U.S. companies such as SpaceX to provide cargo and eventually crew service to the International Space Station is a cornerstone of the President’s plan for maintaining America’s leadership in space. This expanded role for the private sector will free up more of NASA’s resources to do what NASA does best -- tackle the most demanding technological challenges in space, including those of human space flight beyond low Earth orbit. I could not be more proud of our NASA and SpaceX scientists and engineers, and I look forward to following this and many more missions like it."

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Evidence Points to Benefits of Active Teaching in STEM Education

Carl Wieman — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:32:24 +0000

An exciting new report was released today by the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academies. The report, “Discipline-Based Education Research; Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering,” provides some clear direction, backed by extensive evidence, on how to improve science and engineering education in this country. Improvement in this domain has long been a national goal. But despite good intentions and the launch of numerous programs over the past few decades, progress has been too slow.

The new study summarizes a large body of research and concludes that, across the science and engineering disciplines, scholarly studies clearly indicate that “student-centered instructional strategies can positively influence students’ learning, achievement, and knowledge retention, as compared with traditional instructional methods.” It specifically cites such approaches as making lectures more interactive, having students work in groups, and incorporating authentic problems and activities into coursework as being superior to traditional lectures, which remain the mainstay approach to teaching in too many classrooms.

That these superior instructional strategies are not in widespread use today would come as no surprise to anyone who has strolled across the campus of a major university and observed what was happening in the science and engineering classrooms. Nor would it surprise anyone who has talked to university administrators or others about the barriers that interfere with adoption of superior instructional strategies, including the problems posed by current institutional priorities and reward systems.

The implications of this report are profound. It says that there is compelling research showing that there are instructional strategies that, when widely used, will give clear improvement in all aspects of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. And unlike many past efforts to improve STEM education that have been largely based on hunches and unsupported opinions, this report uses research to identify how STEM education can be improved and what must be done to achieve that improvement.

Importantly, the benefits of better STEM teaching can reach well beyond the narrow goal of giving STEM majors a better education. For one, use of superior teaching strategies can lower the attrition rate among STEM majors—an important goal articulated in a recent report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. That report found that close to 60 percent of students who enter college as STEM majors change their major by the time they graduate, in no small part because poor teaching practices leave them uninspired and confused. Another benefit is that improved undergraduate STEM teaching can provide future K-12 teachers with a much greater mastery of the science they will teach, while demonstrating a better model for how science is best taught and learned.

Congratulations to the National Research Council for a job well done. If its recommendations are implemented, the repercussions of this report will go far beyond undergraduate STEM education.

To read a news release about the new report, click here.

Carl Wieman is Associate Director for Science at OSTP

Administration Safety Data Initiative Challenges App Developers

Ray LaHood and Todd Park — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:20:53 +0000

Safety is the number one priority at the US Department of Transportation (DOT), so National Transportation Week is the perfect time for DOT to help launch the Obama Administration's critical Safety Data Initiative--an historic effort to make government data relating to every aspect of safety, from transportation to crime to consumer products, much more accessible, and to stimulate the development of innovative apps and services fueled by those data.

We know that helping Americans gain access to practical information can help them make smarter, safer choices. So, coordinated by DOT, this new collaborative effort involving Federal agencies and the public aims to unleash Americans’ entrepreneurial spirit by encouraging participants to build a range of innovative digital tools and mobile applications to enhance public and product safety.

To help kick off the Safety Data Initiative, today we are announcing two app challenges that take advantage of more than 700 open government datasets now available on Safety.Data.gov.

DOT has launched the Motorcoach Safety Data Student Challenge, which asks developers to use public performance data about interstate commercial bus companies found on Safety.Data.gov to help consumers make smart safety decisions about their bus travel.

And the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Occupational Safety and Health Administration wants your help in building tools to educate the public about safety in the workplace through its Worker Safety and Health Challenge. The goal is to develop apps that can reduce the number of work-related injuries, which affected more than 800,000 individuals in 2009 alone.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, DOT, DOL, and other agencies are looking forward to seeing the safety apps that you’ll develop for America’s public safety officers and concerned citizens. Are you building apps that empower people to make informed decisions about their safety and the safety of others using data from Safety.Data.gov? We want to hear about them! Tell us about the safety apps you’ve built using the form on the White House site. In September, the Safety Data Initiative will host a Safety Datapalooza at which a cross-section of the most innovative safety applications submitted will be highlighted.

DOT and the rest of the Federal agencies with safety missions never stop working on your behalf. And now, with the Administration's new Safety Data Initiative, you can join us in keeping America safe.

Responding to the President’s Call, a New Effort to Help More Students be Makers

Tom Kalil and Kumar Garg — Thu, 17 May 2012 23:14:43 +0000

Earlier this year at the White House Science Fair, President Obama met Joey Hudy, a 14-year-old from Arizona who developed the “extreme marshmallow cannon.” Joey showed the President his business card. It had a simple motto: “Don’t be bored. Make something.”

Joey is a self-described “maker,” part of a growing community of young people and adults who are designing and building things on their own time. This weekend, in San Mateo, California, over 100,000 people are expected to show up at "Maker Faire" to see what community members are making. Sixty “mini-Maker Faires” are planned this year alone.

President Obama believes we need to give more young people the ability to be makers like Joey.

As the President said at the launch of his Educate to Innovate campaign to improve science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, "I want us all to think about new and creative ways to engage young people in science and engineering, whether it's science festivals, robotics competitions, fairs that encourage young people to create and build and invent -- to be makers of things, not just consumers of things."

That's why today, we are excited to highlight a new effort that responds to the President's call to action: the Maker Education Initiative (MEI).

With leadership from Dale Dougherty, a White House Champion of Change and founder of Maker Faire, MEI has founding sponsorship from Cognizant, Intel, and O'Reilly Media.

The mission of the Maker Education Initiative is to create more opportunities for young people to make, and—by making—build confidence, foster creativity, and spark interest in science, technology, engineering, math, the arts—and learning as a whole. MEI wants young people to join—and eventually lead—the growing Maker Movement.

The Maker Education Initiative will achieve its mission by focusing on three important areas:

More maker spaces and infrastructure where students can come together to design and build;
More maker projects that bring together materials and curricula for a broad range of students of various ages, and;
More maker mentors to share both their technical expertise and their passion with young makers.

MEI will also build upon the Young Makers program, which has developed a playbook to help parents, teachers, and students in communities across America start local Maker clubs. Through these efforts, MEI will work to introduce the maker mindset into schools, afterschool settings, and summer camps. These and other projects will be developed to deliver a sustainable infrastructure, technical expertise, shared resources, materials, and curriculum to communities across the Nation.

We look forward to working with MEI and its partners on this important and exciting work.

Tom Kalil is Deputy Director for Policy at OSTP. Kumar Garg is Senior Advisor at OSTP.

Robotics Initiative Gets DOD Boost

Tom Kalil and Chuck Thorpe — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:15:44 +0000

It's been almost a year since the President announced his National Robotics Initiative to accelerate the development of next-generation robots capable of working closely with human operators. The initiative launched with tens of millions of dollars in combined commitments from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Agriculture, and NASA, and has already resulted in a number of projects moving forward.

Then, last fall, the Department of Defense (DOD) added momentum of its own, with the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program explicitly encouraging proposals "for instrumentation supporting research in robotics."

The results are in! We count at least a dozen winning proposals involving robotics research in areas such as unmanned underwater vehicles; mobile robots for field assembly, repair and maintenance; autonomous seagliders for Arctic research; and micro air vehicles. These DOD grants to university researchers will allow them to invest in robots and other kinds of high-tech equipment to augment their research.

Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to DOD for its strong support of the National Robotics Initiative. We look forward to seeing all of these robots at work!

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

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

Merit Review: Ensuring Gold-Standard Science Around the Globe

John P. Holdren and Subra Suresh — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Three years ago, President Obama spoke at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., and called upon American scientists and engineers to work more closely with the international science community, even as he committed to boosting investment in domestic science and technology to new heights. That call for international collaboration resonated with U.S. researchers and research institutions for a number of reasons.

First, as the President noted, science, technology, and innovation often proceed more rapidly when creative minds from varied backgrounds share their insights. Second, especially in these economically trying times, more can be done when costs and risks are broadly shared. And third, a growing number of the challenges being addressed by science and technology—energy independence, better healthcare at lower cost, and improved food security, among others—are global in character.

Yet international collaboration poses unique challenges. Among the most important is the uneven commitment among nations to the highest standards of “merit review”—the gold-standard practice by which research proposals are judged by researchers’ peers to determine in a fair and evidence-based manner whether those proposals are worthy.

Without merit review, science funding is ever at risk of falling prey to social biases or political agendas. Experts simply can’t be beat when it comes to assessing the likelihood that a proposed experiment will deliver the intellectual and material goods it promises.

That’s why it is so significant that, for the first time ever, the heads of the primary science-funding agencies from nearly 50 countries will gather in Arlington, Va., on May 14 and 15 to craft and release a common set of merit-review principles and to create a Global Research Council to develop additional best practices for collaboration. The six principles they will initially agree to—which assert the essential value of expert assessment, transparency, impartiality, appropriateness, confidentiality, and integrity and ethics—are critical to putting the global research enterprise on a shared foundation that will not only enhance the quality of science but also bolster public trust in that science.

Merit review is not a uniquely American practice. But U.S. research-funding institutions such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the nation’s largest funder of non-biomedical research in all fields of science and engineering and the convener of this week’s Merit Review Summit, are renowned for their strict adherence to it. The process depends upon thousands of subject-matter experts volunteering a few days per year to sit in modest meeting rooms and rank in a fair, transparent, and competitive manner the quality of various research proposals—more than 40,000 of which are submitted every year to the NSF alone. It is a painstaking endeavor but the result is clear: basic research selected for funding by the NSF has led directly to cell-phone technology, MRI scanners, and the Google search engine, to name just a few outcomes that today are valued in the billions of dollars, generating entirely new industries and countless jobs.

Why should Americans care if other nations commit to the principles of merit review? For one, U.S. researchers competing for global funds risk losing their fair share if other governments do not ensure merit-based review of U.S. proposals. For another, U.S. collaborators are put at risk if their partners are not committed to ethical standards and scientific integrity. And U.S. economic interests can be seriously harmed by colleagues or competitors who do not respect confidentiality and intellectual property.

By contrast, with broad agreement on the principles underlying merit review, American scientists can take full advantage of the free exchange of information that has long fueled scientific progress, even as they collaborate with colleagues in far-flung nations that—ready or not—are investing more and more in science and technology. We already know that the global scientific community’s appetite for international collaboration is strong: 32% of U.S. research articles in 2010 were internationally coauthored, up from 23% in 2000. And the number of science and engineering articles in which U.S. researchers shared authorship with foreign researchers more than doubled between 1995 and 2010.

There is no better time for the world’s nations to agree on common standards for merit review. In today’s global economy, good science anywhere in the world is good for science—and good for people—everywhere in the world.

John P. Holdren is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Subra Suresh is Director of the National Science Foundation.

New Commitments Support Administration’s Materials Genome Initiative

Cyrus Wadia — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:15:50 +0000

Today, at a White House event, leaders from industry, academia, national labs, and government announced more than a dozen new commitments to advance the Administration’s Materials Genome Initiative—an ambitious challenge to double the speed and cut the cost of discovering, developing, and deploying new high-tech materials in the United States.

The President announced the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI) in June 2011 as part of a broader effort to create new jobs, solve societal challenges, and enhance America’s global competitiveness by bolstering the U.S. advanced manufacturing enterprise. New, high-tech materials can revolutionize manufacturing, helping to make vehicles that are safer and lighter; packaging that keeps food fresher and more nutritious; and lightweight bullet-proof vests for police officers and soldiers, among countless other applications. But the pathway from discovery to commercialization can take decades.

“The invention of silicon circuits and lithium ion batteries made computers and iPods and iPads possible, but it took years to get those technologies from the drawing board to the market place,” the President said when he announced the Initiative, at Carnegie Mellon University. “We can do it faster.”

Today’s White House workshop, attended by more than 170 leaders from the public and private sectors, aims to further galvanize that effort. Some of the key announcements being made today include:

Broad Industry Partnership by Over 60 Institutions: Pledges by more than 60 companies and universities to advance the President’s Materials Genome Initiative through their business, research, and education practices.
Regional Partnerships to Accelerate Work: Argonne National Laboratory will collaborate with Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and local industries to build new cross-disciplinary teams that will have increased access to Argonne’s advanced materials research and development capabilities.
Open Access Made Available to Millions of Molecules: Harvard University leveraging IBM’s World Community Grid and in collaboration with Wolfram Research committed to openly disclose the properties of 7 million newly discovered molecules.
New Tools for the Classroom: Autodesk is committed to making technology and a library of 8000 materials available to the education community, which will complement their open access education modules in advanced materials.
Predicting the Properties of Nanomaterials: Ten Federal agencies that participate in the National Nanotechnology Initiative unveiled a new “signature initiative” to stimulate the development of models, simulation tools, and databases that will enable the prediction of specific characteristics of nanoscale materials.

These and the other new commitments add to previously announced Administration investments spanning nine Federal programs, and reflect the MGI’s “all hands on deck” approach that enlists the wealth of ingenuity, imagination, and brainpower that exists in American research institutions, small businesses, large corporations, professional societies, and elsewhere.

The materials community has mobilized. The Administration is working to lay a foundation for a new era of policies, resources, and infrastructure that will support advanced materials, and American institutions have committed to build upon that Federal progress. Together, we are on track to achieve the President’s vision for advanced materials.

For further details about the Materials Genome Initiative and a full list of commitments announced today, check out this MGI fact sheet.

Cyrus Wadia is Assistant Director for Clean Energy and Materials R&D at the Office of Science and Technology Policy

Submit Your Public Safety Challenge!

Brian Forde — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:09:51 +0000

Safety.Data.gov was launched recently with the goal of making datasets available that provide information about public safety issues like crime rates, roadway safety and safety in the workplace. These datasets provide the public safety community with a wealth of information that can help solve real world public safety problems and challenges.

Now we’re asking for your help. In an effort to use public safety data to empower people to make better informed decisions about their safety and the safety of others, we’d like to know what public safety challenges you’re facing. We’ll then share your input with technologists and innovative first responders who may come up with a great way to help solve that problem. Click here to learn more and submit your challenge!

OSTP Seeks Comments on Proposed FOIA Regulations

Jennifer Lee — Wed, 09 May 2012 19:07:25 +0000

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is proud of its record of responsiveness with regard to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Indeed, when the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released its March 2012 “Report Card on Federal Government’s Efforts to Track and Manage FOIA Requests,” OSTP scored an A+.

Today, as part of the Administration’s ongoing commitment to open government and transparency, OSTP is issuing proposed regulations to further improve OSTP’s FOIA-related service and performance.

The proposed regulations contain provisions to comply with the President’s January 21, 2009, Executive Memoranda on“The Freedom of Information Act” and “Transparency and Open Government,” as well as Attorney General Holder’s March 19, 2009, Memorandumon “The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).” These memoranda affirmed the Administration’s commitment to transparency by establishing a presumption of disclosure and openness “[i]n the face of doubt.”

The proposed rules clearly describe the structure of OSTP's FOIA Requester Service Center, prescribe methods of requesting records, explain the manner in which OSTP responds to requests, and describe policies governing applicable fees.

OSTP encourages the public to submit comments on the proposed regulations by email to ostpfoia@ostp.eop.gov, by fax to (202) 395-1224, or by mail to: Office of Science and Technology Policy, Eisenhower Executive Office Building, 1650 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Washington, DC, 20504. All submissions must be in English and must include the submitter’s name and return address or e-mail address, if applicable. Please clearly label submissions as “FOIA PROPOSED RULEMAKING.” Comments submitted to OSTP may be subject to public release, so please do not submit any personally identifiable information (such as social security numbers), or proprietary, business confidential, classified, or copyrighted material.

The Request for Public Comment is available at the Federal Register’s website here. All comments are due by June 11, 2012.

Jennifer Lee is Associate Counsel for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Fermi Award Winners Saluted

Nafeesa Hunt Owens — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:12:01 +0000

President Barack Obama greets 2010 Fermi Award recipients Dr. Burton Richter, right, and his wife Laurose, and Dr. Mildred S. Dresselhaus, third from right, and her husband Gene, in the Oval Office, May 7, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The best science is as much about service as it is about discovery. And that’s especially true for two of our Nation’s most accomplished researchers, who were honored Monday for devoting their lives not only to doing great science but also to teaching and mentoring, public service, and inspiring others.

The two awardees, Drs. Mildred Dresselhaus and Burton Richter--after visiting with President Obama in the Oval Office--were joined by distinguished guests at the Ronald Reagan International Center as Secretary of Energy Steven Chu honored them as winners of the Enrico Fermi Award.

A Presidential award, the Fermi Award is one of the oldest and most prestigious science and technology honors bestowed by the U.S. Government. It is administered by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science to honor individuals who have given unstintingly over their careers to advance energy science, and to inspire future scientists to follow their example.

Dr. Dresselhaus made many discoveries that deepened our fundamental understanding in condensed matter systems. She has also served in a variety of scientific leadership roles, including as the Director of the DOE Office of Science and President of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition, Dr. Dresselhaus has devoted great energy to mentoring students, raising community awareness about science, and promoting progress on gender equity. She is widely respected as a mentor and spokesperson for women in science.

Dr. Richter has done pioneering work in the development and use of accelerator technologies that have contributed to several Nobel Prizes—including the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics that he shared with Dr. Samuel C.C. Ting for the discovery of a new kind of heavy elementary particle. Dr. Richter also provided visionary leadership at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (today’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) from 1984 to 1999, where he helped lead advances that not only yielded new discoveries in particle physics but also laid the foundation for major new strides in photon science. Since then, Dr. Richter has served as a leader in many other positions involving public policy and science and technology.

Drs. Richter and Dresselhaus both opened new scientific and technical horizons. But, equally important, they have been generous with their scientific knowledge and their wisdom. We are proud to salute them, winners of the Enrico Fermi Presidential Award.

White House Science and Tech Staff Thank Their Teachers

Phil Larson — Tue, 08 May 2012 22:26:16 +0000

In celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week—and specifically National Teacher Appreciation Day today—OSTP staff wanted to thank and highlight some of the teachers who have had the most impact on our lives.

You can join the chorus of praise! Secretary Arne Duncan is asking that Americans everywhere join him today and donate their Facebook status to a teacher who has made a difference in their lives, and thank a teacher on Twitter by using the hashtag #ThankaTeacher.

Every day, teachers take on the daunting responsibility of building the minds of the future. Below are some of our staffers’ thoughts on the vast collection of teachers who influenced their lives:

“Many teachers influenced me as a student, but none more than Mr. Francis L. Avey, Jr. at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School in Richmond, VA. Mr. Avey taught my small middle school class in 7th and 8th grade everything from English literature to civics and history to religion. And he did it all with great enthusiasm and humor.” – Peter Colohan, Senior Policy Analyst, Environment and Energy Division

“My favorite teacher was B.K. Mundy of Virginia Episcopal School. Mr. Mundy not only taught me 10^th grade U.S. government and 12^th grade World History but also coached me in football and track. I’ll always remember his classroom mentoring provided me tools for learning, organizing, and critical study habits that I still use today.” – Reed Skaggs, Senior Policy Analyst, National Security and International Affairs Division

“One of my favorite teachers is Fr. Perham, my computer programming and math teacher at St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights, IL. The most important lesson that I learned from Fr. Perham was to take my mistakes in stride and learn from them. My other favorite teacher is my wife Adriana Kurfess, a 7th grade science teacher who studied Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Her dedication to education is clearly reflected in the enthusiasm that her students have for the sciences.” – Tom Kurfess, Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing

“I was fortunate to learn from so many extraordinary science teachers within the public school system in Jacksonville, Florida. Ms. Osborn set our elementary school class loose to dissect fetal pigs; Mr. Sweetsir turned our middle school into a research and development simulation; and Mr. Phanstiel wrote his own songs to teach advanced high school chemistry. I’m indebted to each of these educators, and so many others.” – Doug Rand, Senior Policy Advisor

“To Mr. Mar and Mr. Streetz, my 7th grade math and science teachers; and Mr. Rosenberg, Mr. Smilde and Ms. Hall, my high school world history and English teachers: Thank you for teaching me how to solve questions without simple answers, and how to figure out the best way to say what you mean!” – Chelsea Martinez, Fellow

“The further I go in my career, the more I use what I learned in Miss Nelson’s 10th grade English class. I don’t often refer to the plays of Shakespeare, but I always need to write and speak clearly, correctly, and persuasively. Forty years after the Ubangi Academy, I still say thanks to Miss Nelson!” – Chuck Thorpe, Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics

“I was inspired by many of my math and science teachers throughout my education, but I became a scientist because of Mr. Mazur, my AP chemistry teacher at Troy High School, in Troy, New York. Mr. Mazur loved chemistry and it was contagious! He sparked my interest in discovering new things through scientific research by encouraging us to dig in and experiment!” – Danielle Evers, AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow

“The teacher who most influenced me was Mr. Posey at John Marshall High School in San Antonio, Texas. He established a research laboratory for high school students in a rural school where the previous focus had been on agriculture and equipped it with one of the earliest computers.” – Deborah D. Stine, Executive Director, President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)

“I had several teachers over the years that impacted my life, but my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Hendershot, was the first who helped me embrace my own humor, viewpoints, and areas of interest. She pushed me to further explore my unique personality and view of the world, and she made me feel comfortable with who I was. Among the gifts a teacher can give you – confidence in who you are is one of the greatest. Thank you, Mrs. Hendershot.” – Karrie Pitzer, Executive Assistant

“My high school biology teacher could transform a room of Drosophila flies into an experiment with excitement and discovery. Dr. Thomas Artiss, who now teaches at Stevenson School in California, is an incredible mentor who has encouraged and inspired me for over a decade.” – Jennifer Lee, Associate Counsel

“I had a very special math teacher throughout junior high and high school at the Golda Och Academy in West Orange, NJ. Mrs. Londino made numbers exciting. She connected with her students and instilled a love of logic that I still retain today.” – Becky Fried, Policy Analyst, Environment and Energy Division

“I’d like to thank Dr. Timothy Roberts, who taught Latin at Jefferson City High School. He always made ‘being smart’ seem like the most adventurous thing on the planet.” – Constance Squire, Policy Analyst

“I want to thank Mrs. Heyle, my senior-year English teacher, for making me want to be a good writer. I still work on my writing every day, but her patience, wisdom, and good cheer remains a treasured memory.” – Kumar Garg, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Director

“I’ll never forget Diane Emord, my biology teacher at Henninger High School in Syracuse, NY. She never made it easy and she never doubted that I could do it. Her class was engaging; the lab activities were fun. She’s one of the reasons why I felt like I had a knack for science.”– Nafeesa Owens, Policy Analyst

“I was lucky to have many wonderful teachers in high school who gave up not only their working hours but their weekends to environmental adventures, special video projects, debate tournaments, and Robert Burns’ shortbread. But my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Gonnelly at Hamden Hall in Hamden, CT, was the person who first taught me to appreciate a good challenge and seize every opportunity to understand the world beyond our classroom.” – Lauren Andersen, Policy Advisor

“My high school teacher heroine was Nellie Hill, the only biology teacher in Georgetown County, SC, who took an opportunity to engage high school kids in a marine biology project. Due to her talents and efforts, Pleasant Hill High School, a small – graduating class of 37 students – in the inland-most part of the county, became the hub of a two-year project that piqued my curiosity about things oceanographic and launched my career as an ocean scientist.” – Jerry Miller, Assistant Director for Ocean Sciences

“Mrs. Levine and Mrs. Kroll at Tustin High School in Tustin, CA, took the time to get to know me and my classmates for who we were, tapping into our individual passions to get the most out of us. They knew I was passionate about technology and would always incentivize me to work harder by allowing me to do school projects in multimedia formats instead of a standard word document.” – Brian Forde, Advisor to the CTO on Mobile and Data Innovation

“I received excellent preparation for my academic pursuits, and, more importantly, for success in life, from dedicated and devoted teachers at Sligo School and Takoma Academy in Maryland: LeRoy Achenbach (geometry); Robert Albright (American history); Paul Copiz (social studies); Pauline David (math); Bruce Freeman (english); John Gibson (physics); Ray Hartlein (archaeology); Robert Hatt (math); Valerie Landis (english); and Ken Wilson (chemistry).” – Allan Manuel, Senior Policy Analyst, National Security and International Affairs

"My middle school and high school band teacher was Mr. Michael Hintzman, and he is my favorite teacher. As soon as I met him in 6th grade I could tell he was truly passionate about what he does. Inspiring children to do things outside their comfort area is one of the most important traits of a teacher, and Mr. Hintzman did that. Also, he devotes tons of hours outside the school day to making sure his students are the best they can be. Thank you, Mr. Hintzman!” – Phil Larson, Communications and Policy Analyst

Ensuring an Open Internet

Lawrence Strickling, Philip Verveer, and Daniel Weitzner — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:25:34 +0000

Central to the Internet’s value as a platform for innovation, democracy, access to information and scientific progress are the technical standards on which it is built and the open manner in which it is governed. Yet, there are governments that seek to alter the fundamental way the Internet functions. Several governments recently called for new treaty provisions to assert centralized control over the Internet’s operations instead of relying on the voluntary, consensus-based processes that gave us the Internet we enjoy today.

Internet institutions such as the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and the World Wide Web Consortium have been essential to the Internet’s growth. These organizations operate on a multi-stakeholder basis, assuring that all who have an interest in the Internet can have a voice in its operation. They reflect the collaborative and enterprising spirit of the Internet, which President Obama referred to in the International Strategy for Cyberspace as “one of the finest examples of a community self-organizing." Their transparency and flexibility have enabled the Internet to scale up from a small academic network to a growing global infrastructure.

Governmental proposals to replace the Internet’s decentralized and open system must be resisted. Centralized control over the Internet through a top-down government approach would put political dealmakers, rather than innovators and experts, in charge of the future of the Internet. This would slow the pace of innovation, hamper global economic development, and lead to an era of unprecedented control over what people can say and do online. Centralized control would threaten the ability of the world’s citizens to freely connect and express themselves by placing decision-making power in the hands of global leaders who have demonstrated a clear lack of respect for the right of free speech.

Over the last year, we have heard from numerous Internet stakeholders regarding their concerns about the future of the Internet. Most recently we heard from a number of constituencies at a White House meeting that the three of us hosted on Monday as part of our ongoing effort in this domain. All of these discussions have been invaluable for fostering understanding of the key issues at hand and forging partnerships to confront the challenges ahead.

We have heard from civil society organizations calling for greater participation of advocacy groups in Internet governance policy to supplement voices representing commercial and technical perspectives.

We have also heard from several of the technical bodies that set engineering standards and oversee the day-to-day operations of the Internet. These groups have stressed that technical decisions regarding the Internet must be made free from political intrusion. If that separation does not exist, politics may take precedence over technical decisions, leaving Internet users with unreliable technology that does not reflect the best thinking of computer scientists and engineers.

Members of the business community have expressed concern that some national governments seek to balkanize the Internet by establishing barriers to the free flow of information under the pretext of protecting cybersecurity, social stability, or local economies. This is contrary to President Obama's vision of an Internet that is interoperable the world over, and the United States will vigorously oppose such barriers. Further, these regulatory actions would create a confusing array of “local Internets,” establishing different rules for different places. Firms may cease to offer services outside the country in which they are based if a variety of domestic regulations makes it too complicated or too costly.

For these reasons the United States is actively engaged with our global partners in a variety of international settings and remains committed to working with all Internet stakeholders to defend and strengthen the open, interoperable, and innovative Internet.

Lawrence Strickling is Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information

Ambassador Philip Verveer is Coordinator for International Communications & Information Policy

Daniel Weitzner is Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Internet Policy in the White House

Innovative Summer Jobs+ Apps Announced

Brian Forde — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:39:25 +0000

Four weeks ago we launched the first-ever White House Code Sprint, challenging app developers to build job search apps using the opportunities found in the Summer Jobs+ bank. The Summer Jobs+ initiative is a new call-to-action for businesses, non-profits, and government to provide pathways to employment for low-income and disconnected youth in the summer of 2012. Today we are excited to highlight six apps that were created on platforms including Facebook, Android, the iPhone, Windows Phone, and Web browsers. These apps support the goal of connecting America’s youth with summer job opportunities via digital platforms they are already familiar with and use in their daily lives. Thanks to everyone for participating in the code sprint, and we encourage you to share your favorite app below with youth who are looking for opportunities this summer.

workforce.io
Built by Chris Conley from Chicago, IL and the team at worforce.io
Workforce.io was built to bring entry-level workforce players together in their community. They have integrated the Summer Jobs+ opportunities into their website where it will search for the 10 most recently posted jobs available near the user. In addition to searching for a job, workforce.io provides information on how to get a social security card, understand one's paycheck, and make a budget. With the Summer Jobs+ job bank and the workforce.io platform, young adults and their mentors can now find, prepare for, and succeed in their summer job and start building a career!

PocketJobs for Android
Built by Jonathan Banks from Dublin, CA
PocketJobs connects directly to the Summer Jobs+ job bank to get the latest summer internship, training, and mentorship opportunities into the palm of your hand. PocketJobs identifies the most recently released jobs in your area and places them on a map so you can quickly see the location and click to get details. You can scroll through the results, and save the opportunities to your device, email them to friends, or directly access the company websites.

The Summer Jobs app for Windows Phone 7
Built by Chris Craft and Jamey McElveen from Florence, South Carolina
The summer jobs app for Windows Phone 7 allows you to keep up with new jobs and discover nearby jobs from the Summer Jobs+ job bank. The app updates daily to show you the newest jobs and also includes the ability for social networking with Twitter and Facebook.

Back to Work for the web and Apple iOS
Built by David Gobaud from Palo Alto, CA
Back to Work can be found on the Web and also has an iPhone app to access job opportunities on your phone. Features include a Google map view of the search results so that you can see how close the opportunities are to your home and a service to email or text you alerts when new opportunities become available.

Trabaja Friends for Facebook
Built by Monica Wilkinson and Magizharasu Thirunavukkarasu from San Francisco, CA
Trabaja Friends is a Facebook app that helps you recommend summer jobs to your friends from the Sumer Jobs+ Bank. You can send invitations directly to your friends or post them on their Facebook timeline. The app is also accessible outside Facebook at http://friends.cloudfoundry.com/.

Summer Job Fair
Built by Chris Willard from Brooklyn, NY
Summer Job Fair provides a simple interface to browse through a lot of jobs quickly, places them on a map, and includes special features to make your job search even quicker.

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

Made In America: Helping Revitalize U.S. Manufacturing

Sridhar Kota and Chris Vein — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:51:50 +0000

We would like to share a few manufacturing initiatives that reached important milestones during the past week.

Launch of Manufacturing.Data.Gov

President Obama has said that an economy built to last is one that is based not only on consuming goods but on making things. That’s why we’re proud to announce the launch of Manufacturing.Data.Gov. This new community on Data.gov is a one-stop Web portal for anyone interested in sharing and ideas and transforming emerging technologies into commercial success stories. It will serve as a public resource of high-value datasets, tools, and applications that can help entrepreneurs streer the entire product development chain for a project, from invention, engineering design and prototyping, to validation and testing, manufacturing, and sales.

The Data.gov manufacturing community is part of the U.S. Open Government National Action Plan’s commitment to expand the number of Data.gov communities to spark breakthroughs in national priorities. The scope of the dataset will expand in the coming months., but it already includes ready-to-license intellectual property from Federal agencies, Federal funding opportunities, Federal programs in advanced manufacturing, shared facilities, software tools and apps.

Marketing Excess Manufacturing Capacity

Hundreds of millions of square feet of U.S. commercial, industrial, and manufacturing space sits idle. To take better advantage of this resource, OSTP has been working with the Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) to explore opportunities to turn those empty sites into thriving, productive facilities of advanced manufacturing. EDA will launch an initiative to create an inventory of excess manufacturing capacity that will act as an online marketplace to match companies in need of production facilities and related support services with vacant manufacturing facility and space that best corresponds to their needs. The goal is to create a model, based on four to six key manufacturing clusters across the country, that could be replicated to create a nationwide inventory. This new tool will be a valuable resource for domestic companies looking to expand as well as foreign companies exploring the North American market.

Connecting American Manufacturers to Defense Needs

With the goal of applying a user-friendly online market place to increase by ten-fold the pool of participants in defense manufacturing—including small manufacturers and entrepreneurs—the Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Technology program launched the Connecting American Manufacturinginitiative. The program will make it easier for the DoD to find U.S. manufacturers with the right capability and capacity to take on a job, and for U.S. manufacturers to find and secure DoD opportunities that match their capabilities.

Launching Advanced Manufacturing Skills Training in Detroit

The Manufacturing Institute, a national organization focused in part on providing workers with new skills forthe emerging advanced manufacturing industry, recently selected Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD) to lead the Right Skills Now program in Detroit, which allows individuals to earn college credit and national industry certifications in 16 weeks, preparing them for immediate employment in advanced manufacturing jobs.The WCCCD program is a comprehensive effort stemming from the “Make in Detroit” program launched as part of the Administration’s Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative. The need for highly automated computer numerical control (CNC) skills is at near critical levels, with more than 700 job openings posted across nine counties in Southeast Michigan alone. The new fast-track program will train 32 local residents per session in certified precision manufacturing technologiesto help fill those available jobs. The WCCCD Right Skills Now program is also working with the Obama Administration’s Joining Forces initiative to ensure that veterans are tapped into opportunities for advanced manufacturing skills training.

Sridhar Kota is Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing and Chris Vein is Deputy Chief Technology Officer, both within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

PCAST Releases Assessment of National Nanotechnology Initiative

Maxine Savitz, Ed Penhoet, and Chad Mirkin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:37:53 +0000

Today, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released its latest assessment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI): Report to the President and Congress on the Fourth Assessment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The assessment is a Congressionally mandated biennial review of the NNI, a crosscutting Federal program designed to coordinate U.S. investments in research and development (R&D) activities in nanoscale science, engineering, technology, and related efforts across 26 agencies and programs. It was written by PCAST, acting in its capacity as the National Nanotechnology Advisory Panel.

This year’s assessment focused on the progress made by the NNI and the National Nanotechnology Coordinating Office (NNCO) in fulfilling the recommendations that PCAST made in its 2010 assessment.

PCAST found that the Federal agencies in the NNI have made substantial progress in addressing many of the 2010 recommendations that were aimed at maintaining U.S. leadership in nanotechnology. One of the primary goals of the NNI is to stay ahead of heavily-investing competitors such as China, South Korea, the European Union, and Russia. Overall, PCAST concluded that the NNI remains a successful cooperative venture that is supporting high-quality research, facilitating the translation of discoveries into new commercial products, and ensuring the Nation’s continued global leadership in this important field.

The PCAST assessment particularly commends the expanded efforts of the NNCO in the area of commercialization and coordination with industry, and the NNCO’s release of a focused research strategy for addressing environmental, health, and safety (EHS) implications of nanotechnology. In addition, the assessment recognizes NNI’s strong and growing portfolio of research on the societal implications of nanotechnology, nanotechnology education, and public outreach.

The report makes recommendations (summarized on page vii) for additional progress in the areas of strategic planning, program management, metrics for assessing nanotechnology’s commercial and societal impacts, and increased support for EHS research. It notes, for example, that while the NNI has produced a visionary strategic plan, it remains unclear how agencies will implement the actions suggested in the plan. In the case of program management, it calls for the NNCO to be better supported by the participating agencies given the increasingly important coordinating role that the NNCO plays. In the area of metrics development, it identifies a need to track the development of, and ultimately utilize, metrics for assessing commercial impacts of nanotechnology. And in the area of EHS, the report concludes that cross-agency governance and coordinated research funding is going to be essential as the field of nanotechnology matures.

PCAST is optimistic that with continued efforts to implement these 2012 recommendations, the United States will continue to maintain its global leadership position in nanotechnology with widespread impact on the economy, high-tech jobs, health, national security, energy, and other critical domains.

Maxine Savitz, Ed Penhoet, and Chad Mirkin were co-chairs of the assessment and are members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). PCAST is an advisory group of the Nation’s leading scientists and engineers, appointed by the President to augment the science and technology advice available to him from inside the White House and from cabinet departments and other Federal agencies.

National Bioeconomy Blueprint Released

Mary Maxon and Elizabeth Robinson — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:22:49 +0000

Today, the Obama Administration announced its commitment to strengthening bioscience research as a major driver of American innovation and economic growth. The National Bioeconomy Blueprint outlines steps that agencies will take to drive the bioeconomy—economic activity powered by research and innovation in the biosciences—and details ongoing efforts across the Federal government to realize this goal.

The bioeconomy emerged as an Administration priority because of its tremendous potential for growth and job creation as well as the many other societal benefits it offers. A more robust bioeconomy can enable Americans to live longer and healthier lives, develop new sources of bioenergy, address key environmental challenges, transform manufacturing processes, and increase the productivity and scope of the agricultural sector while generating new industries and occupational opportunities.

A growing U.S. population requires increased health services and more material resources including food, animal feed, fiber for clothing and housing, and sources of energy and chemicals for manufacturing. Recent advances in the biological sciences are allowing more and more of these needs to be met not with petroleum-based products and other non-renewable resources but with materials that are quite literally home-grown. Indeed, the convergence of biology with engineering and other sciences—including physics, chemistry, and computer sciences—is proving to have tremendous power to generate new scientific discoveries, new products, new markets, and new high-skilled jobs. The benefits can be seen in every sector of the economy, from agriculture to healthcare and from energy production to environmental monitoring and stewardship. Biobased materials are also proving to be excellent and sustainable substitutes for hydrocarbon-based raw materials in a number of industrial and manufacturing processes.

Research is a key component, but it’s not enough to ensure a successful American bioeconomy. In the biomedical domain, public-private partnerships can help the Nation achieve the twin goals of improving health outcomes and reducing healthcare costs. Updated bioeconomy-related education and training efforts can better equip a 21^st century workforce with the skills needed to succeed in an increasingly competitive global arena.

And unnecessary or overly burdensome regulatory barriers must be removed to accelerate the advancement of bioinventions from laboratories to marketplaces while ensuring adequate attention to environmental and health concerns that may be raised by scientists’ new facility with biological systems. The Bioeconomy Blueprint outlines five strategic imperatives for a bioeconomy with the potential to generate new markets and economic growth:

Support R&D investments that will provide the foundation for the future bioeconomy.
Facilitate the transition of bioinventions from research lab to market, including an increased focus on translational and regulatory sciences.
Develop and reform regulations to reduce barriers, increase the speed and predictability of regulatory processes, and reduce costs while protecting human and environmental health.
Update training programs and align academic institution incentives with student training for national workforce needs.
Identify and support opportunities for the development of public-private partnerships and precompetitive collaborations—where competitors pool resources, knowledge, and expertise to learn from successes and failures.

Although progress is being made in all of these areas, the Blueprint calls upon Federal agencies to accelerate their efforts to harness the biological sciences for the benefit of the Nation.

Looking forward, it will be important to assess the impact of these efforts and apply any new metrics for measuring changes in investment, infrastructure, jobs, and more. We will continue to collect comments on the Bioeconomy Blueprint and welcome new ideas for how we can wield America’s leadership in biological innovation toward spurring economic growth and solving critical challenges in manufacturing, energy, health, agriculture, and environment. Please email comments to bioeconomy@ostp.gov.

Bioeconomy Blueprint | Executive Summary | Fact Sheet

Mary Maxon is Assistant Director for Biological Research and Elizabeth Robinson is a Student Volunteer at OSTP.

Science and Engineering Festival, Astronomy Night Come to Washington this Weekend

Kumar Garg and Phil Larson — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:34:19 +0000

This weekend, one of the largest Science Festivals ever to grace the Nation’s capital will pack into the Washington Convention Center, engaging hundreds of thousands of visitors with hands-on activities, demonstrations, and an evening star party.

The USA Science and Engineering Festival, which in its last year welcomed over 500,000 visitors, builds on the President’s call to action to excite and educate students in science, technology, engineering, and math fields. Kicked off in 2010 with a few words from the President himself, the festival this year has grown considerably, with more exhibits, sponsors, and special guests than ever before.

Here’s what you can expect from this year’s USA S&E Festival:

3000 hands on interactive exhibits (versus 800 last year), with 1500 booths with 1000 volunteers
550 Organizations participating
150 Stage Shows
50 satellite events across the country (find one in your area!), including Philadelphia, Lehigh Valley, North Carolina, St. Petersburg, Cambridge, Las Vegas, and Santa Monica Mountains
40 leading science and engineering authors
3 talks by Nobel laureates
130 Corporate Sponsors

The event is free and open to the public on Saturday and Sunday, April 28 and 29. For more information, please visit www.usasciencefestival.org.

In addition, on Saturday night, the 3^rd annual Astronomy Night on the National Mall will take place just south of the White House. This public Star Party is an outgrowth of President Obama’s White House stargazing event in 2009 and is organized by Hofstra University with help from a number of regional astronomy clubs.

Representatives from some of the Nation’s foremost astronomical institutions will be on hand to present exciting demonstrations and activities and to answer questions about careers in science, celestial objects and events, and the latest astronomical discoveries. Groups participating in the event include the American Astronomical Society, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Astronomy Magazine, Astronomy Outreach Foundation, International Dark-Sky Association, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics/Chandra X-ray Center, Hubble Space Telescope (Space Telescope Science Institute), NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, National Science Foundation, Division of Astronomical Sciences, and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

So if you’re near the Nation’s capital, we hope to see you out at a science, engineering, and star-filled weekend!

Kumar Garg is a Senior Advisor and Phil Larson is a Communications and Policy Analyst at OSTP

Watch and Engage: Girls in STEM

Ari Isaacman Astles — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:22:05 +0000

Women and girls continue to be significantly underrepresented in the STEM fields – a trend that starts early and comes at a serious cost to both the career prospects of our young women and the success of our economy. By ensuring women and girls receive the exposure, encouragement, and support they need to enter and succeed in STEM fields, this country can benefit from the full range and diversity of its talent.

The White House Council on Women and Girls is excited to announce a White House event that features a panel of trailblazing women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields who will share their experiences and encourage young women to follow in their footsteps – or blaze a trail of their own. Watch the event live at www.wh.gov/live tomorrow, Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 10:30am ET. During the event, panelists will answer questions from a live audience and also take questions submitted online. Ask your questions here or on Twitter using the hashtag #GirlsInSTEM.

This event will also include the very first public screening of “Girls in STEM,” a video on girls in STEM, featuring footage from girls who participated in the 2012 White House Science Fair.

Event Agenda:

10:30-10:35am: Remarks by EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson
10:35-10:45am: Premiere of “Girls in STEM” video, featuring girls who participated in the 2012 White House Science Fair
10:45-11:30am: Panel on Women and Girls in STEM moderated by Administrator Jackson and featuring the following panelists:
- Dr. Cady Coleman, NASA Astronaut, Colonel, U.S. Air Force, retired
- Jocelyn Goldfein, Director of Engineering, Facebook
- Dr. Jean Hernandez, President, Edmonds Community College
- Bianca Bailey, President, Howard University Chapter of Engineers Without Borders

The White House is committed to proving opportunities for all students to engage in STEM. Below is a photograph from the second White House Science Fair that recognized achievements in STEM from across the country.

President Barack Obama hosts the second White House Science Fair celebrating the student winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions from across the country. The President talked with Samantha Garvey, 18, of Bay Shore, N.Y., about her environmental sciences project examining the effect of physical environment and predators on a specific species of mussel, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Feb. 7, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

From Friday: NASA Reaching for New Heights

Charles Bolden and John P. Holdren — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:08:00 +0000

[Editor's Note: This has been cross-posted from the White House Blog.]

In his gloomy Washington Post commentary today on yesterday’s ceremony transferring ownership of the Space Shuttle Discovery from NASA to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, Charles Krauthammer urged readers to think of that transfer as the funeral for U.S. leadership in space. Nothing could be further from the truth. The United States remains far and away the world leader in space technology and exploration. As long as appropriate support continues to be forthcoming from Congress, this will remain the case indefinitely.

Krauthammer suggests that if China succeeds in putting astronauts on the Moon by 2025, as that country plans, they will have “overtaken” the United States. How absurd! Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon in 1969. How does China managing this feat fifty-six years later, if this happens, amount to “overtaking” us? Obviously, the United States could repeat its lunar feats of the 1960s and 1970s if that were the next most important thing to do in space exploration for the money. But it isn’t! We may well return to the lunar surface again as one of many destinations in the future, but for now, our immediate, more scientifically rewarding goals include sending astronauts to an asteroid in the 2020s, and Mars in the mid-2030s. They bring scientific and technological challenges worthy of a great nation and a true world leader.

Krauthammer doesn’t even mention the International Space Station. The United States led the planning, design, and construction of this $53 billion marvel – an orbiting science and technology-development laboratory that has been continuously manned since 2000. Under the previous administration’s plan, it was underfunded after 2016, implying intent to abandon it long before its scientific and engineering potential had been realized. Under the new bipartisan space-exploration plans worked out between the Obama Administration and the Congress, we will continue to operate the Space Station until at least 2020 and perhaps beyond.

In robotic space exploration, too, nobody else comes close. At this very moment, a stream of data is flowing to us from missions orbiting the Sun, Mercury, the Moon, the asteroid Vesta, Mars, and Saturn. We now have missions on the way to Jupiter, Pluto and Mars. The Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra, and Fermi space telescopes continue to make groundbreaking discoveries on an almost daily basis. We’re on track in the construction of the James Webb Space Telescope, the most sophisticated science telescope ever constructed to help us reveal the mysteries of the cosmos in ways never before possible. Last year, the MESSENGER spacecraft became the first-ever to enter orbit around Mercury. And shortly thereafter, the Ebb and Flow satellites began orbiting and mapping the gravity field of the Moon.

We are ahead in looking downward from space as well as in looking outward. Sixteen Earth-science missions currently in orbit study the Earth as an integrated system. In 2011, Aquarius SAC-D produced the first global view of ocean surface salinity and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite began making observations of Earth’s weather and climate. No other country can match our capabilities in Earth observation from space.

Declining to remind readers that it was President Bush, not President Obama who ended the shuttle program (President Obama actually added 2 flights), Krauthammer carps about the Bush Administration’s successor to the Space Shuttle having been canceled in this Administration, but the Bush “Constellation” program as designed was behind schedule and over budget – “unexecutable” in the words of the independent blue-ribbon commission set up by the Obama Administration to review our options. In cancelling Constellation per se, we have kept the parts of it that made sense. A new heavy-lift rocket and multi-purpose crew vehicle developed out of the Constellation program will be instrumental in carrying U.S. astronauts to an asteroid, to other deep-space destinations, and ultimately to Mars.

When Krauthammer complains about the expanded role for the private sector in carrying U.S. astronauts and cargo to the Space Station, as foreseen in the current bipartisan plan and as is progressing well in practice, he seems unaware that every U.S. launch vehicle and space capsule in history – including the Space Shuttle – has been built by private corporations. That is continuing, but on a more competitive basis. Indeed, in the same week as Discovery’s transfer to the Smithsonian, NASA gave the green light to a commercial company, SpaceX, for a planned April 30 launch from Kennedy Space Center, with a berthing at the ISS a few days later. Later this year, Orbital Sciences will launch their Cygnus module and Antares launch vehicle from Wallops Island, Virginia. In FY 2013, NASA plans for at least three flights delivering research and logistics hardware to the ISS by U.S.-developed cargo delivery systems.

It should also be noted that NASA’s focus on new space technologies is seeding innovation, supporting economic vitality and helping create new jobs and expanded opportunities for a skilled workforce.

We understand that in this election year, there are some who will go out of their way to paint a pessimistic view of the country in order to score political points. But, we believe that America’s technological advancement and continued leadership in space exploration is too important to fall prey to political distortions.

Our Shuttle program was an historic achievement, but an even brighter future is on the horizon. Make no mistake about it - the future in space is happening right now, and it is being built right here in America.

Charles Bolden is the Administrator of NASA and Dr. John P. Holdren is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology

Entrepreneurs in Residence: Start Your Engines…

Doug Rand and Felicia Escobar — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:58:12 +0000

Startup companies are engines of job creation, fueled in no small measure by immigrant entrepreneurs starting new companies across the country. President Obama supports legislation to create a visa designed specifically for immigrant entrepreneurs, as part of his vision for a 21st-century immigration system. But instead of just waiting for Congress to act, there’s a great deal the Federal government can do on its own to streamline immigration pathways for startup founders.

One approach is the Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) initiative, launched by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at a stakeholder summit in Silicon Valley earlier this year. USCIS, the Federal agency responsible for administering visa programs, announced last week that its new EIR “Tactical Team” has hit the ground running. Its 90-day mission: to streamline existing visa pathways for immigrant entrepreneurs interested in coming to the United States to create jobs.

Who are these Entrepreneurs in Residence? The 15-member team includes startup experts from the private sector and immigration experts from USCIS. Check out the team member bios and you’ll appreciate the diversity of experience they bring to bear. The private sector participants include

Luis Arbulu, an immigrant from Peru who served as a Google executive before founding the startup incubator Hattery Labs;
Paul Ford, a serial entrepreneur currently serving as a top executive at SoftLayer Technologies;
Ted Gonder, who started the entrepreneurship education organization Moneythink while still in college;
Blake Patton, a serial entrepreneur currently serving as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center; and
Paul Singh, a partner at 500 Startups, one of the world’s most prolific early-stage investment funds.

These startup veterans are working side by side with ten professionals from within USCIS, including experts in immigration law, policy, operations, and fraud detection: Sunny Choi, Robert Cox, Liz Elkiss, Mark Harvey, Efren Hernandez, Tanya Howrigan, Julia Kennedy, Emery Moore, Catherina Sun, and Natalie Tynan.

Over the next 90 days, the USCIS Tactical Team will work to optimize the many existing visa categories used by entrepreneurs to provide pathways that are clear, consistent, and aligned with business realities. See full details here, and let the team members know how you think they can best achieve this mission. Just send an email to public.engagement@dhs.gov with the subject heading “Entrepreneurs in Residence.”

Doug Rand is a Senior Policy Advisor at OSTP

Felicia Escobar is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Domestic Policy Council

OSTP Releases Data on STEM Education

Elizabeth Robinson — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:41:13 +0000

Today, OSTP publishes a trove of data on federal STEM education activities, the 2010 Federal STEM Education Inventory Data Set. The data set is accessible on the OSTP site and also at data.gov. The data set includes information on what STEM education programs the government funded in 2010, what audiences were targeted, what outcomes were monitored, and much more. The data set, which includes information from 13 Federal agencies that support education programs focused on STEM subjects, is the most comprehensive description of Federal STEM education programs.

In December, the White House released the National Science and Technology Council’s first analysis of the 252 STEM education programs that Federal agencies fund, cataloguing how our $3.4 billion investment is distributed across agencies, programs, and target groups. Now, the data that formed the foundation of that report are available online for researchers, schools, and citizens to explore. This publicly available data can be used by anyone to further analyze how the Federal government is addressing STEM education issues and needs and find programs that can be of value to them. These data on Federal STEM education programs will be collected and made publically available annually.

Investing in STEM education is a critical part of the Obama Administration’s mission to keep America competitive in engineering, science, technology and math through supporting high-quality education and workforce development. Today’s data set is just one of many housed at the data.gov Education Data Community, where new data tools and information are being contributed by Federal agencies for public use. By collecting and disseminating data sets like this one, we can make resources more available to the public, ensure transparency in where Federal funds are going, spread best practices, and identify gaps where additional attention is needed.

Elizabeth Robinson is a Student Volunteer at OSTP

Growing the Technology Talent Pool in Detroit

Sridhar Kota — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:21:07 +0000

At the White House Insourcing Jobs forum earlier this year, CEO Tim Bryan of GalaxE Solutions shared his story about bringing Information Technology (IT) jobs back to the United States through its "Outsource to Detroit" campaign and its commitment to hire 500 IT professionals in Detroit. GalaxE has already hired 120 employees and is looking to hire hundreds more. "We have established Detroit as a competitive hub," Bryan said, "and from a price standpoint we are on a par with the offshore destinations and from a quality standpoint we are winning."

Currently, there are over 3,000 job openings in metropolitan Detroit. Large companies like Quicken Loans and Compuware, in addition to scores of startups, are laying the foundation for an IT ecosystem in Detroit. To provide high quality, leading edge IT solutions to their customers, these IT companies require highly skilled employees. So in an approach that can serve as a model for other cities, OSTP and other Administration offices have been working together with public- and private-sector partners to strengthen Detroit’s technically trained workforce.

Working through the Administration’s "Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2)" initiative, the effort took off with the launch of "Make in Detroit", a comprehensive effort to spur innovation in Detroit’s manufacturing sectorand spark economic growth.To help provide the core workforce to support this transformation, we worked with local officials, employers, and educational institutions and ultimately helped foster a relationship between Infosys—a global IT leader in India—and the Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD).

Together those two launched a "Software Boot Camp" to provide on-the-ground technical skills tailored to the needs of the city’s burgeoning IT sector. Fully 100 students—including a significant number of displaced workers from other sectors—are now enrolled in the fast-track 18-week software training course, getting prepared to fill these critical IT jobs—jobs that are rewarding, pay well, and offer security.Moreover, Infosys has committed to training a team at WCCCD to conduct the next round of programs to enroll even more students.

An iconic American city with a resurgent automotive sector, Detroit is now poised to become a national destination for the IT sector. Several local employers have said they are eager to participate in a job fair at the conclusion of the IT boot camp. It’s a great example of making it in America.

Sridhar Kota is Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing at OSTP and an ASME Fellow

Intellectual Property Helps Fuel an Economy Built To Last

Quentin Palfrey — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:12:32 +0000

At a White House event last week, the Administration released a comprehensive Commerce Department report on the contributions of intellectual property to the U.S. economy. The report finds that IP-intensive industries support at least 40 million jobs and contribute more than $5 trillion to our gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, IP-driven jobs are good jobs, providing wages that are 42 percent higher on average than wages in other industries, contributing to economic security for America’s middle class.

The Commerce Department report highlights 75 industries that use patent, copyright, or trademark protections most extensively. These widely diverse industries support more than a quarter of all jobs across the United States. Twenty-seven million of these workers are on the payroll or under employment contract within IP-intensive industries, and nearly 13 million more are indirectly supported through the supply chains that service these industries. These companies depend on a strong, healthy, and balanced intellectual property system.

Wednesday’s report underscores the importance of the Obama Administration’s work to reform our Nation’s intellectual property system as part of the President’s strategy for creating an economy that is built to last. President Obama signed the America Invents Act into law on September 16, 2011, after nearly a decade of efforts to reform the Nation’s patent laws. The new law helps companies and inventors avoid costly delays and unnecessary litigation and lets them focus instead on innovation and job creation. It also gives the USPTO new tools and resources to improve patent quality and more closely aligns the American patent process with the rest of the world to make it easier for entrepreneurs to market products simultaneously in the United States and abroad.

The America Invents Act gives the USPTO the resources to reduce patent application waiting times significantly, building on the great strides the patent office has already made in reducing the patent backlog by nearly 15 percent despite the fact that patent filings have been increasing. The USPTO has also begun implementing a new prioritized examination process known as Track 1, which offers businesses of all sizes an opportunity to have important patents reviewed in one-third the time with a new fast-track option that has a guaranteed 12-month turnaround. Already, more than 3,000 applicants have taken advantage of this program, which also offers a 50% discount for small enterprises. This program allows the USPTO to speed up the processing of the patents that are most likely to quickly create good jobs. Track 1 builds on the Green Technology Pilot program that accelerated patent applications involving reduced greenhouse gas emissions and energy conservation — at no cost to the inventor. Under this program, 3,500 patent applications addressing 21st-century energy and environmental challenges have been fast-tracked and reviewed in about 10 months. Additionally, a series of international work-sharing agreements called the Patent Prosecution Highway has helped about 10,000 patent applicants receive IP protection in 22 different countries—faster and at a lower cost. This kind of international collaboration is especially important in breaking down the legal barriers that exist for smaller companies trying to export their products into a global economy.

Through the implementation of the America Invents Act, the Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement, and other efforts, the Administration is building a strong and balanced system of intellectual property rights that provides greater certainty and equips businesses of all sizes with the tools they need to develop and export their products faster. At the same time, we are committed to an intellectual property rights system that recognizes that IP rights are fully consistent with other core values such as the norms of legitimate competition, free speech, fair process, and the privacy of users.

As President Obama has said: “The key to our success -- as it has always been -- will be to compete by developing new products, by generating new industries, by maintaining our role as the world’s engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation. It’s absolutely essential to our future.”

Quentin Palfrey is Senior Advisor for Jobs & Competitiveness in the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy

Using Video Games to Solve Problems

Matt Gaydos — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 13:19:35 +0000

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.

One thing GDC highlighted was the fact that parts of the video game industry are becoming increasingly self-aware of the ability for games to engage and empower players and wrestling with the implications thereof. One result of this is that a small but growing number of commercial game designers have begun to develop games for positive social outcomes. For example, Eric Zimmerman’s Game Design Challenge Upgrade Humanity in 60 seconds flat required participants to create a game that could be played in less than sixty seconds and that measurably improved the lives of its players. The games that Richard Lemarchand, Noah Falstein, and Jason Rohrer created addressed issues of happiness and self-fulfillment, the celebration of everyday heroes, and economic inflation respectively. These games serve as a testament to the potential that games have to make positive contributions to the world, addressing issues of social importance through play.

They also point towards another reason as to how games can have a positive impact - through their creation. Game design and development offer new and valuable avenues through which young people can engage technology. Young people like Hannah Wyman, for example, the eleven year old 2012 Kodu cup winner who was recently celebrated at the White House Science Fair, exemplify the potential for a new generation of developers to leverage creativity, technological savvy and game creation tools to create engaging and expressive games. Hannah’s game “Toxic” is not only an example of an outstanding accomplishment by a young developer, but includes a positive social message as well - in “Toxic”, players ask non-player characters to plant trees that help clean the air before time expires.

As the video game industry and academia, and philanthropic sectors continue to explore new and effective ways to both entertain and educate players, individuals and companies must continue to lend their expertise and participate in these challenges, to provide feedback on how we might improve them, and take initiative in developing positive social impact games. Only by working together can we overcome the technical, institutional, and design challenges associated with creating games that make the world a better place.

Matt Gaydos is a Student Volunteer at OSTP