VIEWPOINTS: OC’s Tech Future
The University of California, Irvine’s May 17 symposium on “California: Prosperity Through Technology” gave corporate, academic and government officials a chance to share ideas and predict the future. The key takeaways: Orange County and Southern California, owing once again to the military/aerospace industry, are a hotbed of technology,but overall innovation in the U.S. is slowing and the country is losing its technological edge. Here are the condensed thoughts of several symposium participants:
Dwight Streit
Vice president, Northrop-Grumman Space Technology
Southern California has played a major role in aerospace since Lindbergh and it’s growing again,of 1 million manufacturing jobs in Southern California, 200,000 to 250,000 are in aerospace.
Due to consolidation over past years, the region is down to three major aerospace companies, but each facility has R & D.; If we do it right,keep tech centers here,there is enormous opportunity to leverage technology, to build a better California.
Key strengths of Southern California: its concentration of world-class universities; the greatest public universities in the world create a feeder system of engineering; a large percentage of engineers comes from here and stays.
But engineering enrollment is down. We can’t find system engineers.
Satellites are hot. They allow us to observe global warming, ozone depletion, water levels and wind velocity for weather forecasting.
Dennis Bushnell
Chief scientist, NASA Langley Research
Center
There is a bio-nano-opto-quantum-micro revolution in aerospace. Silicon is a commodity. There are hot applications in robotics and satellites, which are reduced in size by nanotech. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working on this now.
Coming: everyman’s space capability. Instead of your own SUV, you can have your own satellite. People will be able to carry rockets in their cars. Rocket technology is nowhere near where it can go.
Coming: labs-on-a-chip.
Coming: virtual reality/immersion technology “so you can put yourself on Mars.”
U.S. universities are behind other countries in technology research. Three-fourths of nano research is done outside the U.S.
Henry Samueli
Chairman, chief technology officer,
Broadcom Corp.
Seven to 8 billion microprocessors will be installed by 2004. By 2006 cellular is expected to have an installed base of 800 million units; 250 million units will have data services and multimedia/video. In 2005 WiFi will reach 100 million users. Change in power, size and component count enables new apps and markets. RFID (radio frequency identification) is coming fast,a huge drive of the silicon industry.
California and OC are expected to be hotbeds for startups in new technology due to their military origins.
Challenges and opportunities of a fully connected world: privacy/big brother issues, virus protection, hackers/intruders protection, reliability and authenticity of data, writing virus and virus protectors, “electronic terrorism,” continuous speed recognition, security, biometric security, and content protection and DR (database resource) management. Trillions of nodes need network management.
John H. Marburger III
Director, President Bush’s Office of Science and Technology Policy
More than a billion for security and technology is part of the homeland security budget. Cars have more technology than Apollo spacecraft. The U.S. is ahead in innovation. Examples: hydrogen fuel initiative; nanotech initiative; biotech; robotics; human-computer interface; standards; R & D; tax credit for entrepreneurs.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Managing director, Smith/Barney/Citigroup; vice chairman, China Technology Innovation Corp.; host, PBS’ “Closer to the Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future”
Nine men rule China and all of them are engineers. U.S. political leaders are lawyers.
China is the world’s largest market for cell phones. Everyone in California (in technology) will sooner or later have to deal with China.
Biotech, microtech, biologists, mathematicians, other scientists are working with UCI to “cross-pollinate” with Beijing Institute.
Rick Zalesky
Vice president, Hydrogen Technology, ChevronTexaco Corp.
California is the world’s lab for addressing results from energy utilization. What Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger calls the Hydrogen Highway could be the new paradigm. Automobile technology is part of an old, mature business. Hydrogen is at an early stage.
Dwight Decker
Chairman, Conexant Systems Inc.
Global sourcing drives low cost. Product development is going overseas. Technology implementation is going lowest-cost, e.g. call centers to India, manufacturing to China. Highest broadband penetration is in Korea.
The future requires innovation in North America today: robust education, eager customers, early adopters, risk capital, entrepreneurs.
Ralph J. Cicerone
UCI chancellor, nominee for president of the National Academy of Sciences
With the “mentality” and resources that it takes to have world-class technology, you cannot lead in every field, but you have to be good enough in every field to recognize breakthroughs whenever they occur.
It takes highly educated people in science and technology, investment capital and business insights,people who understand the markets.
