MIT Emerging Technology Conference MITETC - Day Two

MIT Emerging Technologies Conference
Thursday, Sept 28, 2006
Cambridge, MA

Day two of this conference was decidedly different than day one. While day one was comprised of more light-hearted, even optimisitc viewpoints about techy topics such as web services, online applications, how to define and nuture innovation, and what AOL is up to, day two was much more sobering.

The day started with an interesting, if not optimistic, talk from George M. Whitesides. George discussed the recent senate committee report on competitiveness in the U.S. Here are the high (uh, maybe low) lights:

• The U.S. is now a net importer of high tech products
• U.S. companies are now ranking lower with respect to high tech patents than ever before
• U.S. students are now doing worse compared to their peers outside the U.S.

Recommendations given to deal with this reality include:

1. Capital - increase teacher, student support, strengthen funding for basic research
2. Labor - get the best teachers, increase teacher status and salaries
3. Energy - clearly the most controversial recommendation, to create a DARPA-like organization whose goal was to fund advanced energy-saving research. Called "ARPA-E" by the committee, I can't for the life of me understand why this recommendation did not fare well. Seems we need to push and reward BIGTIME efforts to do amazing things among alternative-energy solutions. My cynical view: legislators are either too ignorant to know what to do with this organization should they create it, or they have been bought-off by existing energy interests to act this way.

My take is that we are and have been in a true innovation crisis in America. We only support incremental and/or piecemeal solutions that, while being cheap and attainable, are woefully inadequate. We will only achieve big when we think big. Seems all the big thinkers are dead. Incrementalism will never get us where we need to go.

Former VC Roger McNamee, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Elevation Partners

This guy was truly one of the best and most exciting speakers in the entire two-day event. He talked on almost any subject, and kept the audience engaged constantly. Here are some of his most notable quotes:

"People don't want software, they want outcomes."

"Technology will make a difference [at least first] through media."

Although the Internet has done a great job in aggregating information, it does not prioritize it effectively so people can easily get at what they want.

I totally agree with this one. In fact, now that any 13 year-0ld can create a web site, you can't really tell if someone is an expert (like me ;) ), or a nut-job (take your pick). This is why the Internet is the "great equalizer", or more appropriately, the "great medocre-maker". We truly need, as Roger says, to "move up the stack from 'information to wisdom' ".

Big issues with moving up the stack are tackling things like personalization, trust, and authority. We need to KNOW that the info we get is the best info, most relevant for our needs. In accordance with my comments earlier about incrementalizm, Roger states that:

"We are harvesting our national economy." -

This is exactly right. We are doing nothing to plan the great things of the future. We are merely milking the cash cow of the present for our own current needs, and to Hell with the future.

--> As if this was not enough to chew upon, the next panel was even more disturbing:

Panel Discussion on Global Warming

As I said in an earlier post, this discussion was really depressing. Here are the basics:

Once countries figure out the reality and danger of the global warming crisis, reducing carbon emissions will be THE central focus for investment in the future. There will be simply no alternatives. This was the premise put forth by a group of esteemed experts on the subject. All were in agreement as to the dire nature of this threat. Problem is, we only have between 10-20 years to act, and most countries are not convinced of the threat yet. They seem to think that, by the time we all figure this out, it will be essentially too late to do anything about it.

Since you need to stay below 500ppm of carbon atoms in the atmosphere to avoid an irreversible global catastrophe (their assertion), called a "tipping point", if we act too late we will not be able to avoid this. Apparently this is due to the fact that it takes 3000 years to get carbon out of the atmosphere once it gets in. All of this stuff is essentially cumulative, and we are already dangerously close to the limit.

IF you believe all this stuff..it's very scary indeed.

Next topic ended my day on a lighter, albeit more frustrating, note.

Panel discussion on DRM: "Making PCs safe for Hollywood"

Discussion of activities around the Trusted Computing Group's efforts to create HW and SW DRM that works. Newest version of this is called the AACS, for "Advanced Access Content System". This basically will allow a certain number of "managed copies" of an asset to exist simultaneously on different media with different devices, so one person can listen to music, say, on portable devices as well as PCs.

I believe that this DRM stuff is basically the music industries' attempt to "hold back the ocean". My opinion is that it will work, but we will all be made miserable in the process. I personally resent being made miserable in order to prevent something being done by a small minority of people. However, this is not the first time in history this has occurred, and it won't be the last.

That's it...all in all one of the most interesting and thought-provoking conferences I've attended in a while. I would highly recommend it to anyone.