Washington Speaker Series: Speakers
Inspiring Innovation: Reinventing the Theory, Practice, and Policy of Transformational Change
Panel Moderator
Pradeep K. Khosla
Dean of the College of Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Guest Speaker
Jack Goldman
Creator of Xerox PARC
Former Professor of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University
Panel
Robert D. Atkinson
Founder and President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Erica R.H. Fuchs
Assistant Professor of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
Robert K. Gardner
Founder, New World Technology Partners
Egils Milbergs
Executive Director, Washington Economic Development Commission
David Wu
Congressman (D-OR), Chair, House Committee on Science and Technology's Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation
Speaker Biographies
Robert D. Atkinson
Founder and President
Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
Dr. Robert Atkinson is the founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington, DC-based technology policy think tank. He is also author of the State New Economy Index series and the book, The Past And Future Of America’s Economy: Long Waves Of Innovation That Power Cycles Of Growth (Edward Elgar, 2005). He has an extensive background in technology policy: he has conducted ground-breaking research projects on technology and innovation, is a valued adviser to state and national policy makers, and is a popular speaker on innovation policy nationally and internationally.
Before coming to ITIF, Atkinson was Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) and Director of PPI's Technology & New Economy Project. At PPI he wrote research reports on technology and innovation policy, which included issues such as broadband telecommunications, Internet telephony, universal service, e-commerce, e-government, middleman opposition to e-commerce, privacy, copyright, RFID and smart cards, the role of IT in homeland security, the R&D tax credit, offshoring, and growth economics.
Previously Atkinson served as the first Executive Director of the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council and as Project Director at the former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. He is a board or advisory council member of the Alliance for Public Technology, Internet Education Foundation, NetChoice Coalition, the Pacific Institute for Workforce Innovation, and the University of Oregon Institute for Policy Research and Innovation. He is the chair of the Congressionally-created National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission.
Government Technology Magazine and the Center for Digital Government named him one of the 25 top Doers, Dreamers and Drivers of Information Technology. In 2006, Inc. Magazine listed Atkinson as one of 19 Friends of Small Business in Washington. Ars Technica listed Atkinson as one of 2009's tech policy People to Watch.
Erica R.H. Fuchs
Assistant Professor of Engineering and Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University
Erica R.H. Fuchs is interested in the geography of design, international technology and operations management, and innovation and industrial policy. Currently, she has two main streams of research. The first looks at the impact of manufacturing offshore with regards to the technology development path of the firm and the industry. She has studied two cases of emerging technologies: advanced composites in automobiles and integration in optoelectronic components. In both cases, her results show that when US firms shift production from the US to countries like China, often the most advanced technologies that were developed here no longer pay. Factor costs are different abroad, and earlier technologies can be more cost-effective in countries like China. Among other issues, this leaves the most advanced technologies abandoned, and, in the case of the optoelectronics industry, creates a barrier to ever returning production to the US. Her second stream of research studies the social processes influencing technology trajectories. Here, she is again studying information technology, in particular, microprocessors. This work focuses on two main areas—the coordination of innovation among key industry architects and the processes by which the government seeds and encourages new technology trajectories within this framework.
Robert K. Gardner
Founder
New World Technology Partners
Robert K. Gardner, is the founding member of New World Technology Partners, through which he has been a leader in "strategic" technology development and an incubator of technology enterprises since the mid seventies. He participated in or led the development of significant Supercomputing, Information Risk Management and Real-time Control System technologies, including Illiac IV, PEPE, NASF, VSLAN, SIFT and the Probity Gradient. Mr. Gardner managed/participated in the launch of several development stage companies formed around those technologies, including August Systems, Verdix, Meiko Scientific, Cryptek, Phoenix Numeric and Probity Labs. He is currently leading Computer Sciences Corporation's development and introduction of the /i/RISK™ information risk management methodology and practice. Under the auspices of New World Technology Partners, he led turnarounds of public companies, including General Kinetics and Verdix Corp. At a mid-cap DoD service provider, he created an intellectual property incubator which introduced Trusted TeamWorks™ and several Machine-vision innovations. Gardner was also responsible for financing and spinout for several NWTP startup and turnaround clients, having coordinated several private placements for that purpose. Prior to forming NWTP, he held senior engineering and technical marketing positions for supercomputer projects at Burroughs Corporation. He has a BSEE from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and studied graduate engineering and business administration at Penn State and the University of Santa Clara respectively.
Jack Goldman
Creator of Xerox PARC
Former Professor of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University
Dr. Jack E. Goldman is the retired Senior Vice President for R&D and Chief Scientist of the Xerox Corporation. At Xerox he founded the celebrated Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) – the birthplace of many of the technologies and products that have been the mainstays of the personal computer world including the graphic user interface (windows and icons), Ethernet (which won the Marconi Prize for its inventor Bob Metcalfe) and the word processing program later embraced by Microsoft as “Microsoft Word” among other major developments. Prior to joining Xerox in 1968, Goldman was Director of Ford Motor Company';s Scientific Research Laboratory. He has served on the physics faculty of Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and was Visiting Edwin Webster Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT.
Pradeep K. Khosla
Dean of the College of Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
Pradeep K. Khosla is Dean of the College of Engineering, Philip and Marsha Dowd University Professor in the College of Engineering and School of Computer Science, and Founding Director of CyLab at Carnegie Mellon. His previous positions include: Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Director, Information Networking Institute; Founding Director of the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems; and Program Manager at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he managed a $50M portfolio of programs in real-time systems, internet enabled software infrastructure, intelligent systems, and distributed systems.
Khosla is a consultant to companies and venture capitalists and has served on the technology advisory boards of many start-ups and currently serves on several advisory boards including Iron Leaf Capital Corporation, iNetworks LLC, ITU Ventures, and Alcoa CIO's Advisory Board. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Quantapoint Inc., BitArmor Inc., the Children's Institute, the IIT Foundation, Mellon-Pitt (MPC) Corporation, the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative (PTEI), Doyle Center, and Pittsburgh Technology Council. He is a member of the IT advisory committee, CSIRO, Australia, and a member of ITU High Level Experts Group for the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA). He has served as a member of the Strategy Review Board for Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan; Council of Deans of the Aeronautics Advisory Committee, NASA; National Research Council Board on Manufacturing and Engineering Design; and Senior Advisory Group for the DARPA Program on Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems.
Egils Milbergs
Executive Director
Washington Economic Development Commission
Egils Milbergs is the executive director of the Washington Economic Development Commission (www.wedc.wa.gov). The Commission is charged with developing a long-term economic development strategy and making the state the most innovative region in the world. He was appointed by Governor Chris Gregoire on January 23, 2008, after a nationwide search. He is a noted thought leader and strategist in global innovation, advanced manufacturing, competitiveness and public-private partnerships. He is the founder and served as president of the Center for Accelerating Innovation, Previously, he was the president of the National Coalition for Advanced Manufacturing, president of the Institute for Illinois, Deputy Assistant Secretary for productivity, technology and innovation for the U.S. Commerce Department, and executive director the President's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness. He is a graduate of Harvard College.
Congressman David Wu (D-OR) was sworn in to a sixth term as a member of the 111th Congress on January 6, 2009. Congressman Wu represents Oregon's 1st Congressional District, which stretches from Portland to the Oregon Coast, encompassing all of Washington, Yamhill, Columbia, and Clatsop counties, and part of Multnomah County.
Congressman Wu's priorities include: improving our nation's public education system and making college more affordable; growing Oregon's economy by encouraging new business investment and supporting high tech research; improving our nation's healthcare system and the Medicare prescription drug benefit; and meeting our obligation to future generations by preserving Social Security and protecting our natural environment.
In the House of Representatives, Congressman Wu serves on the Education and Labor Committee, which has sole jurisdiction over education policy. He serves on the Science Committee, which has jurisdiction over research and technology policy and NASA. He is Chair of the Science and Technology Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation.
Congressman David Wu has lived the American dream. In October of 1961, at six years of age, he moved with his family to the United States after President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order updating unfair immigration quotas. He was educated in public schools, earned a Bachelor of Science from Stanford University in 1977, attended Harvard Medical School, and received a law degree from Yale University in 1982.
Congressman Wu's distinguished legal career included a clerkship with a Federal judge in Portland. In 1988, he co-founded the law firm of Cohen & Wu. For a decade, the firm successfully served the high technology industry and numerous small businesses across Northwest Oregon.
Congressman Wu counts among his proudest accomplishments his work to help build scores of new businesses that have thrived and provided well-paying jobs for Oregonians. His fifteen years of experience in the Portland business and high technology communities make him uniquely qualified to represent the "Silicon Forest" district in Congress.
Congressman Wu is the first and only Chinese-American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. He currently is a member of the Executive Board for the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and served as Chair from January 2001 to January 2004. Congressman Wu is also a member of the New Democrat Coalition (NDC), a group of moderate Democrats in the House.