Everybody has an App store these days: Apple, Palm, RIM, Google, Nokia and… the US federal government?
Launched last week, Apps.gov is an online storefront for federal agencies to purchase cloud computing applications and services. This one-stop shop includes a selection of business and productivity apps, cloud IT services, and free social media tools such as Wordpress, MySpace and YouTube.
Global CONNECT was the intellectual equivalent to an all-you-can-eat buffet: there were almost too many tempting options, and at the end of the event it takes a few days to digest everything you consumed. Not a surprise, of course – given that more than 200 people from 18 countries descended on MaRS for almost three days of workshops, seminars, keynotes and panels exploring every facet of collaboration and commercialization.
As I reflect on the conference and its component sessions, I’m struck by a few key realizations I wanted to share:
longhorn statue, originally uploaded by xgray
This week a gubernatorial request to the Teacher Retirement System (TRS) of Texas will be reviewed that would see up to $600 Million for direct venture capital investments into Texas-based companies.
Currently, the public pension system in Texas makes all of its venture capital investments as a limited partner in unaffiliated venture capital funds, as do most public pensions in Canada and the US. The Venture Capital Institute provides a great history of how a series of legislative and regulatory changes in the late 70s permitted risk-equity investment by pension funds, spurring on venture funds and providing the partnership capital that comprises both venture and buy-out investment we know today.
Though risk-equity investment by public funds has been a bonanza for venture capital, it still usually represents a very meager portion of their overall investment, TRS having invested only 3.3% of the $93.32 billion system.
However, with a few clear stats (Texas receives the third-most venture capital of any state, but this year will receive less than 25% from in-state investors), it is clear to Gov. Perry that changes are needed to boost the local VC funds to ensure their best companies aren’t poached to the coasts.
Donkey – Sleepy Sandokan
originally uploaded by kenyai
Despite the best efforts by pharma, which I covered recently, the Democrats won control of the US House and Senate.
Now, in the aftermath of the midterms, the wooing commences. Lobbying against some key Democrat policies has already begun. Pharmaceutical companies are recruiting Democratic lobbyists, lining up allies in the Bush administration and Congress, renewing ties with patient organizations, and even lobbying for enough republican support to give them a potential veto from the White House.
The attitude, though hopefully exaggerated, expressed by Ken Johnson, a senior vice president at Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, as “It’s all hands on deck. It’s like a hurricane warning flag. You don’t know where it will hit. You don’t know who will be affected. But everybody has to be prepared.”
So why so much lobbying? Why so afraid of these big bad Democrats? While many of the issues are well document and old news, I’ll try and present ‘The Stakes.’
On November 3rd, Prime Minister Tony Blair gave a rousing and very motivating speech on the important of science and innovation to the United Kingdom at the Royal Society in Oxford. (Get the full text of the speech here or read the New Scientist’s story on the speech here.)
With his typical, elegant prose, Blair discussed the importance of the knowledge economy to Britain, and the various factors and considerations we should have moving forward. Early in the speech, he makes the case that science and innovation is ‘utterly critical’ to the British economy:
We talk of Britain’s future as being a ‘knowledge’ economy by which we mean an economy where we do not compete on wages – how can we when China’s wage costs are 5 per cent of ours – but on intelligence, on innovation, on creativity… …Manufacturing is having to revolutionise every decade just to stand still. Financial capital and technology are mobile. Human capital is what it’s about.
Part of the speech was also devoted to the need to improve the dialogue between science and non-scientists alike.
This won’t be done by lofty superiority but by engagement with the street, with science out there talking, debating, listening and educating. Science cannot any longer be detached from the society that houses it. Its influence is too pervasive for that. Every area of policy today has a scientific aspect. Think of the big questions of our time – climate change, the spread of infectious diseases, water supply, biodiversity, terrorism. We will need to consult the scientists over every one.
Another focal point of the speech was on importance of developing an entrepreneurial spirit in the UK. Engaging the academic community, developing a robust education system, attracting world-class scientists, international collaborations and furthering technology transfer and collaboration networks.
There is a message here too for the scientists – you need to think intellectually, but also commercially. There is still a significant cultural difference between the UK and the US. In the US, it is common for scientists to design a research programme specifically to answer the questions posed by businesses. In the UK that connection is usually made later in the process.
In all of this, Blair suggested part of the role that government’s should play:
The first is perhaps the most difficult issue of all. Government must show leadership and courage in standing up for science and rejecting an irrational public debate around it.
The UK has certainly had unfortunate experience in scientific controversies and activism; BSE, GM foods, animal rights activism and stem cell research to name a few. The government is acutely aware of the need to proactively engage and involve the public in such issues.
Combating them takes the world of science to engage fully, clearly and in simple language with the world outside it. We need scientists willing and able to explain, to reason, to give the scientific facts not by arrogant assertion but by patience and also accurately reflecting where science is fact and where it is still conjecture. Britain as a whole must become a scientifically literate society. This is not simply to grow the next generation of scientists but also to condition all of us to a reasoned understanding of what science can do for us; to dispel the myths; calm the scares; let us make our moral judgements, at least partially, on the facts.
Finally, he emphasized the need to popularize science, to make it not only open and accessible, but also appealing to the next generation of scientists, instilling enthusiasm into youth.
…challenges like climate change can only be beaten by motivated and dedicated scientists and to understand that a career in science today is not a life all spent in a laboratory but has the best business and job prospects the modern world can offer. One of its implications was that if, as an idealistic young person, you wanted to change the world, then become a scientist. Politics will be necessary but insufficient…
We need our scientists today to be as celebrated and famous as our sportsmen and women, our actors, our business entrepreneurs. Scientists are “stars” too.
This is Britain’s path to the future, lit by the brilliant light of science.
While it has taken him a while (by his own admission) to get to this point, Blair seems to get it. The future of the UK, and certainly many developed countries, will depend on their capacity for not only science and innovation but more crucially on the commercialization of that science. This level of recognition from the upper echelons of political power certainly speaks to the importance of the issue. I hope it will be contagiously adopted and given similar credence by our own governments.
