SPEAKERS:
G. Wayne Clough: President, Georgia Institute of Technology
Clough's Georgia Tech website
Nicholas Donofrio: Senior Vice President, Technology and Manufacturing, IBM
IBM website interview with Donofrio
ABOUT THE LECTURE:
It’s no secret that the U.S. is dangerously close to losing its edge in the global marketplace. What can be done to hold on to a competitive advantage? The National Innovation Initiative, a group of 200 drawn from the public and private sector, has been mustering in the past year to answer this critical question. G. Wayne Clough, one of the Initiative’s leaders, invokes an “urgency to the task,” because “if we lose our edge, we will lose jobs and benefits.” The NII hopes to generate an “actionable agenda, ” which would include identifying critically emerging technologies; making the public sector more innovative and economic policy supportive; and gearing students, from kindergarten on up, to participate in a 21st century workforce. Nicholas Donofrio points out that other nations are already sharply focused on innovation, from Europe to Asia, and that this international challenge puts the U.S. at a crossroads. We must “spark innovation and growth to generate prosperity,” he says. And he’s not speaking of simply creating new products: “Invention doesn’t guarantee value….We need the fusion of new developments and approaches to solve real problems.” These problems include the spiraling costs of healthcare and our dependence on oil. Addressing these issues will mean stemming the decline of engineering and science training in American students; ending government support of “antiquated industries that stifle development;” and tailoring labor, trade and tax policies to encourage innovators around the world to live and work here. We “need to make innovation the heart of the national agenda,” says Donofrio, but an “enormous amount of political will must grow” to accomplish this.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
G. Wayne Clough has served as President of the Georgia Institute of Technology since 1994. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1964 and 1965, and a Ph.D. in 1969 in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Clough was a member of the faculty at Duke University, Stanford University, Virginia Tech, and the University of Washington. He served as Head of the Department of Civil Engineering and Dean of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, and as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Washington.
In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed Clough to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and he currently chairs a nanotechnology task force and previously chaired the Federal Research and Development panel. He is a member of the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age and a Member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness.
Nick Donofrio is the leader of IBM's technology strategy. His responsibilities include IBM Research, the Personal Systems Group, the Integrated Supply Chain and Integrated Product Development teams, Governmental Programs, Health and Product Safety, Quality, and IBM's enterprise on-demand transformation team. He also heads the IBM Technology Team, is a member of IBM's Strategy Team, and is chairman of the board of governors for the IBM Academy of Technology. Donofrio joined IBM in 1964 as a college intern and was hired permanently in 1967. He spent the early part of his career in integrated circuit and chip development as a designer of logic and memory chips. He has led many of IBM's major development and manufacturing teams -- from semiconductor and storage technologies, to microprocessors and personal computers, to IBM's entire family of servers. In 2002 Donofrio was recognized by the Institution of Electrical Engineers -- the largest professional engineering society in Europe--with the Mensforth International Gold Medal for outstanding contributions to the advancement of manufacturing engineering. In 2003 he was named Industry Week magazine's Technology Leader of the Year.
RESOURCES:
National Innovation Initiative: Council on Competitiveness NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
Video length is: 1:01:47.
Robert Buderi, Editor at Large, Technology Review, introduces the keynote speakers.
At 3:22, G. Wayne Clough begins.
At 15:12, Nicholas Donofrio begins.
At 40:20, Q&A begins.
The information on this page was accurate as of the day the video was added to MIT World. This video was added to MIT World on 2005-01-11.
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