Andrew Keen is an Anglo-American entrepreneur, writer, broadcaster and public speaker. He is the author of the international hit “Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is Killing our Culture” which has been published in 17 different languages and was short-listed for the Higham’s Business Technology Book of the Year award. As a pioneering Silicon Valley based Internet entrepreneur,... → Learn More
Aneesh Chopra the US Chief Technology Officer. Aneesh welcome to Tech Crunch TV.
Thank you for having me.
Aneesh, what are the three major challenges in the United States when it comes to innovation?
Well, we believe, first and foremost that we need to have a robust baseline infrastructure for the country. And to me that baseline infrastructure isn't just roadways, railways and runways. But it includes smart infrastructure. 4G network that covers 98 percent of the country. A smart grid, a healthcare IT platform that has doctors and hospitals interconnected.
And a learning technologies platform that allows schools and parents and children to communicate and learn from each other and from new resources, number one. Number two, we need rules of the road in an internet driven economy. Those rules of the road today cross boundaries federal, state, local and internationally.
So as we grapple with issues of security and privacy intellectual property enforcement and the like. We need rules of the road that will comport to the 21st century, internet economy as we see it. And the President's signature on the patent reform bill last week is just an example of the down payment in that regard.
We have much more work to do in privacy and security. We've got legislative packages and principles that we've introduced to the congress. And third, perhaps most importantly, in areas of national importance, well defined areas of national importance, we have seen for too long a productivity gap between the potential for how a technology-driven health care system, energy system, education system can operate and what it actually looks like today.
MacKenzie recently published a study that we can juice up productivity rates in those sectors of US economy that have not seen the kind of growth that they should. That will in turn will create jobs of the future and open up a new chapter of innovation and I'm very hopeful that the president's strategy for American innovation, available at whitehouse.gov/innovation, answers the call on each of these key challenges that are in front of us.
Aneesh of the AT;T Foundry in Palo Alto which is, I think trying to trigger innovation. What message would you give to the tens of thousands of entrepreneurs watching you on TechCrunch now?
Well, my number one goal is to inspire them to participate in ways that we can invent a better America. That is, if you're looking at opportunities to give back, you might be a developer at a company with some spare time and you can help us build a product or service that will improve our healthcare system, improve our energy management, improve our ability to educate our children.
We'd love your volunteer time if you can. For those that see business opportunities, not my words, but venture capitalists like Brian Roberts at Ben Rock and John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins, they see another billion dollar opportunity at the intersection of care delivery reform and information technology.
We think the health care system is ripe for breakthroughs. We'd love for new entrepreneurs to come into the market. Give it a whirl. And help us to build that better value based healthcare system. And then three, for the small number of you actually believe that public service is in your heart. We love to recruit you to Washington.
We are increasingly attracting former entrepreneurs in the government using the notion of government as invitation convenertool more so then more money or new laws that have to be put in place. And there's a lot we can do together with just the role as government as convener. If you're entrepreneur and you think there is something you want to work on today.
We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to attract you. In fact we have technology fellows program available right now, whitehouse.gov. Take a look at our technology fellows recruitment package applications are due in about a week or so. We'd love to see as many of you as possible come in.
What worries you most? Because we know that America isn't innovating in the way that many people want it.
Well, look, there's no question in my mind that there is an increasingly competitive global marketplace. So, the jobs and industries of the future that are increasingly information driven, those jobs and industries can take hold anywhere in the world. So, there is a bit more competition to ensure that those jobs and industries happen here in the United States.
But I have confidence the president has confidence that we're going to succeed with the packages that we put forward. What worries me, clearly, are issues of security, more often it's the security challenges that we face so much of this information driven infrastructure is built on or surrounded by the internet ecosystem and to be said that that ecosystem in putting to use against mission critical applications faces more and more of these threats without a thoughtful response we just put ourselves further and further behind, and I am confident and hopeful that the President's commitment on security will help to bring out a new set of programs and services that really do solve this challenge for us, but right now there is a lot of work still to be done.
We don't have the legal authority to share information from what we know in our homeland security directorate with other areas of critical infrastructure. We don't have the mechanisms to bring to life new products and services that we think could help to secure are networks in new and creative ways.
So we're trying to tap into those challenges and address them directly with the cyber security programs.
Final thoughts, Aneesh on two other sectors which are very hot at the moment, education and energy.
Yes, well, by far our educational system, just Friday of last week, the president launched Digital Promise, a non-profit board that is built from some of the brightest minds around the country, including Gilman Louie out here in Silicon Valley who had previously founded In-Q-Tel. This board will look at identifying best practices that can scale to basically demonstrate learning outcomes can be improved with the introduction of information technologies.
I've seen it directly. I've visited schools and families that have had kids learn better by complementing their school system with information technology fueled products and services and the energy space. This is a live issue here in California. Just last month, the California state regulators announced that they would direct three utilities in the state to come together on a common standard for how they will share energy information to customers that want it.
Imagine the apps ecosystem that will emerge. That will take my energy data from my home and convince me when I should turn out the lights and how I should manage my home energy use. Studies show that this could save anywhere from three, four, five, some even say 15 percent on our energy If we were empowered with the right information to make better decisions.
So energy, healthcare, and education are top of mine priorities for us and opportunities that we believe will benefit greatly from the entrepreneurial gift system here in Silicon Valley.
Aneesh Chopra the chief technology officer of America, rather ambitious title. I want to thank you so much appearing on TechCrunch TV and wish you very best of luck with innovating in America in the 21st Century.
Thank you, it's an honor to serve.
“It’s an honor to serve”, America’s Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, told me when I caught up with him at AT&T’s gleaming new Foundry innovation center in Palo Alto last week. Appointed by President Obama as America’s first CTO in 2009, Chopra laid out for me three priorities for driving technological innovation in America. The first is building what he calls “smart infrastructure” for the digital age. The second is establishing clear “rules of road” for critical issues like security and intellectual property protection in an increasingly Internet centric economy. And the third is leaping over what he calls “the productivity gap” to create digital jobs in the future.
It’s no easy task, of course. And that’s why America’s CTO is calling on TechCrunch’s army of entrepreneurs to join him in reinventing the country. Chopra told me that key sectors in our economy, from healthcare to energy to education, are now ripe for radical innovation. And what we now need, he insisted, are entrepreneurs willing to go to DC in order to serve the public good in programs like the Technology Fellows Program
But is Chopra right? Should entrepreneurs be innovating on their own technology start-ups, or should they instead be going to DC to start-up America?
Chopra serves as the Federal Chief Technology Officer. In this role, Chopra promotes technological innovation to help the country meet its goals from job creation, to reducing health-care costs, to protecting the homeland. Prior to his confirmation, he served as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology. He lead the Commonwealth’s strategy to effectively leverage technology in government reform, to promote Virginia’s innovation agenda, and to foster technology-related economic development. Previously, he worked as Managing Director with the Advisory Board Company, leading...
