In the program to let me talk about
the books he is a good friend from
the day we were at my peak at university
in the north not as good as Georgia
really doesn't have a football team
at all but we actually see him.
Somebody coming from.
He's a quarterback and
we sure are a center MIT
which is part of what
I hope that we will have in Georgia Tech
which is the center of a toxin juniors and
social science in the level of P.T.S.D.
and basically put them together in
the same space to think about the same
kind of problems with you for your uncle
which is also what we try to do here some
loans for college and management and
all around the country Erica has done
interesting work specially recommend for
anyone who cares about
anything if you do have work
location activities and
innovation specially China US
which is not what she's going to
talk today so
we leaving you feeling sort of future.
And today she's going to talk about her
really interesting more thoughtful and
how thoughtful actually produce or
two respects what we hope good impact
good influence on the U.S. as a whole and
whether this is a model or
whether this is just part never do.
Erica lawyers your thank you so
Danny I've known for a long time and
it's an incredibly eloquent speaker and
so I was extremely fortunate to
have him introduce me because I
sounded much better with Danny's
description that I would have my own.
But you will have to forgive me today.
I'm an engineer and I'm going to be
presenting work that is both historical
and sociological and so
I look forward to learning from everyone
in the audience about my own work as much
as I hope I can share with you about
what I've learned about technology and
about its development by the government.
So in these times of automotive and
financial sector crises we find
ourselves in the United States
asking what role if any
the government should
be playing in technology development and
if you're down in D.C.
It seems that these arguments are stuck
between two polar opposite alternatives.
Either we're going to leave everything
to the free hands of markets.
Or the government's going to
come in with its heavy and
choose technology winners and
what I'd like to suggest to you
today is that there exists
a third alternative and
that this alternative
in the form of DARPA.
Has existed in the United States for
over the past fifty years and
what that alternative is is taking
technologists in a state role
as government officials and
having them really architect
social networks and thereby
technology trajectories and technology
outcomes to achieve government aims.
So let's see what I'm talking about here.
So unlike other countries
who have open and
explicit technology development policies.
There's been a strong prevalence of free
market thinking in the United States and
so among those who do see a role for
government they often turn to their old.
Friend of top down bureaucracy with
the idea being that we need to
centralize technology activities we've
just seen this recently back and
while from the Brookings Institute
we're calling for
a national Innovation Foundation to
centralize our activities they shy away.
There's always in news saying
the whole heaven forbid
we choose technology winners.
And if the government is going to come
at it all the role would be to influence
the volume and not the direction
of technology development.
So if the government were
to influence direction.
It might happen through something like
standards through regulation taxation
policies and what I'm going to
suggest is actually we have
another way that we have fluids technology
development here in the United States and
that is by influencing
these social networks.
So this idea is not new.
Right and will in two thousand and
he wasn't the first to have it right.
It's the state can operate as a liaison or
broker in creating networks and
empowering non-state actors especially
when state actors occupy a central
position in these networks and yet
despite the recent growth in literature.
You have one of the premier people
sitting here in the front of the room for
press or brightness of course but
the people and the areas that they've
studied have a certain similarity to them.
The vast majority of examples
are industrializing Nations.
Right.
So we're looking at technology development
in Israel in Ireland in Taiwan and
in the few developed country examples
the state links firms to support
knowledge dissemination to enable
collaborative learning sable or
to help smaller firms catch up
manufacturing extension program but
it doesn't really play the four running
role and while that fits with a new.
Hundred ninety definition of row broker or
boundary spanner it doesn't really
build on this emerging notion of
network plasticity that's coming out
in the social networks literature
this idea that you could have a change
agent who sits outside a community and
can affect social networks to
achieve organizational objectives.
So let's look at
the example of DARPA right.
So DARPA was founded in one thousand
nine hundred fifty eight and
it was founded because we believe
that the Soviets had got into space.
First they had gotten Sputnik to space
because of this inner service between
the Army the Navy and the Air Force and
we were going to cover com that
rivalry by establishing DARPA at
any point in time since that period
DARPA has seldom had more than one hundred
people it seldom has had more than three
to four billion dollars And with that
little amount of people have money its
goal has been to prevent quote as
they say technological surprises.
So since its inception.
DARPA has been hailed by historians for
example as founder
of the Internet of the personal computer
of the laser you can see DARPA.
In the pages of Playboy magazine
in the one nine hundred ninety S.
You can find DARPA on the West Wing
in the two thousands DARPA is
notorious it's famous and
as a consequence it's copied.
Right.
So
in one thousand nine hundred eight
the intelligence community decides
it needs its own DARPA in one
thousand nine hundred nine
the intelligence community's first version
of DARPA didn't work out so well so
they come up with In-Q Tel and
they try a second version that again.
In their language talking about
copying DARPA in two thousand and
two Homeland Security says it
needs its own DARPA its H S R.
In two thousand and six.
Now the intelligence community comes
in with actually explicitly calling
itself intelligence are.
And in two thousand and.
Seven The energy community says OK
the Department of Energy needs an R.
and I've heard this now and
I've actually been brought up to talk to
people in mass it wants its own arpa.
The and I it's what's its own art and
so with everyone.
Copying ARPA you would think.
What is this model that they're trying
to copy and for a matter of fact with
even stranger is in exactly
the period when they're all copying.
Is going under enormous criticism.
Right so tender is in charge of DARPA and
the word on the street in the news is
that DARPA is dead it no longer works.
So let's talk for
a moment about what's going on in DARPA So
Bush comes into power Bush Jr in
June eighteenth two thousand and
one just after Bush has
come into our presidency.
There is a point of the director of DARPA.
In September eleventh two thousand and
one just months after tether comes then we
have the World Trade Center September
eleventh we go to we declare war
on Iraq in March two thousand and three me
so and in this period as tethers director.
Whereas in one thousand nine hundred two
to two thousand and one DARPA was thought
of as an agency with broad area
announcements open ended solicitations and
funding primarily of universities
by this period under tether.
Is moved to a sort of structure of
twelve to sixteen months deadlines for
getting work done linked to go nogo
deliverables if you haven't met
those goals your funding is ceased the
funding is shifted from universities to
established vendors Boeing systems and
often the universities are precluded from
being able to be the prime contractors.
So they can team up with be a systems but
they can't get the money
directly themselves.
So you can.
Imagine it's not surprising then
that in the New York Times and so
forth and the computer research community
the community Research Association.
There's a severe criticism
from the academic community
about what's happened within DARPA So
what then is the DARPA model is the DARPA
model dad with all of those changes.
Well if you look from the institute
Defense Analysis at Richard band.
Dick writes There should not and
there is not and
should not be a single DARPA model and
yet even in Richard ben at his own work.
He says well you know but what makes up a
successful it's so tempting to try to talk
about that he says well it's independent
from the service R. and D. organizations.
It's this lean agile organization with
risk taking culture it's idea driven and
outcome oriented that's what makes DARPA
successful Bill Bond villian comes in and
actually DARPA posts these
twelve organizing elements on
their website they say this is what we
are about and he writes in his paper he
says well what makes start to work is
the same things stick that out is that.
Plus it has this focus on
hiring quality people that too.
And actually it has this role of
kind of connecting collaborators and
let's talk that about that perhaps the
most in what I'm going to talk about but
what's interesting is that if you look
across the decades at how dark has
changed any of these things come and
go within DARPA is organization.
Right.
So in the one nine hundred sixty S.
Eisenhower as president were
going through the Cold War and
bets and directors and
basically were focused
within DARPA on scientific merit over
military on independence on intellectual
quality in the best people and Eisenhower
believes that really we're going to
win the Cold War with our economic prowess
this isn't going to be about the military.
By the one nine hundred seventy S.
however Nixon's in the present.
Back to what we were doing under
the highlight of period and
I've done a little glossing over it in
greater detail in the paper itself.
There's not all the presidents in here and
there's not all the directors but
it's easier to present it in that form.
So you look at that.
And you look at what people have said
in the past and you say Well with so
much change over these decades and
even within the decades again
I've kind of taken this out
to the average letter level.
What is the DARPA model that all of
these imitators should be copying and
is that model really under Tony Tether.
And that's the question that I answered
and I took actually tether is perhaps
one of the most radical changes in DARPA
he stayed in the position the longest for
over seven years that was the longest
directorship that ever existed and
I look specifically at the Microsystems
technology office that's
an area I have technical expertise and
their development of for
technology is related to Moore's Law.
Two of those technologies developed in
the one nine hundred ninety S. period and
the other those two technologies supported
and developed by DARPA and a few thousands
so I'm going to in the interest of time
not talk longer about my method side but
just say that this is qualitative
field work with archival work at DARPA
fifty semi-structured interviews with
DARPA program managers both periods.
It took me a year and a half to get
access to DARPA's program managers and
they were very protective
of the tother period.
I talked with all of the major computing
companies people at each ones of those
companies who are researchers who had and
had not received funding from DARPA
to university professors who had and
had not received funding from DARPA.
And to the Major government labs
who were involved in these programs
all around the development of
these specific technologies.
I did some participate observations I
attended conferences in the industry and
then I collected C.V..
Bios of all of the interviews
including their people are much data
as well as getting.
You know budgets and
reports technical reports some DARPA and
from what was being posted in
a congressional testimony some legislation
and the answer for
me in what really DARPA and
the DARPA model was about is that it
really comes down to the program manager.
So a program manager and
this is by a DARPA
program manager himself he says that
a program manager that has a passion for
an idea that understands
the technical elements of an idea and
has some vision for
where that idea might go.
So these program managers are taken from
the existing technical research community
they had could be in government
labs in industry and academia and
this is seen as a step
ladder in their careers.
Right.
So you can go and
be a doctor a program manager and then you
go off and you're going to become dean
of Carnegie Mellon or you're going
to become C.E.O. of Lincoln Labs and
there actually is another group of people
who I learned about who come back and
become depressed which I said quite
honestly because it's never the same as
their experience within DARPA they
never have that same thrill again and
they can only be in charge for
three to five years.
It's a short tenure and
what happened is when I looked at
the quotes from the interview and
the interviews with the program
managers in the pretender period and
I look at the quotes from the interviews
during the teather period.
What you find is what the darker program
managers are saying that they're doing and
what they're doing is in some
ways exactly the same but
change is the recipients
of those actions and
what becomes exactly the same is
their language the way they talk
about how they identify directions in the
existing research community how they seed.
And themes in that research
community how they then develop and
build that research community.
You'll see among the people who receive
DARPA funding that they all talk about
this providing third party validation this
comes up again and again in their language
and DARPA talking about that they get
out they don't sustain the technology.
So let's talk about each of those
different steps and how the DARPA program
managers do that so to identify
directions there are both formal and
informal methods in place within DARPA So
on the formal side DARPA has
things such as the Defense Science
Research Council which actually originally
was called the Material Science Research
Council these people come together.
I can't believe this as an academic myself
but for nearly four weeks in a summer
to hear about the military's problems
to present their latest research and
to brainstorm on where research should
be going next to meet these problems and
these are leading academics and
scientists in the field that
are related to military technology and
DARPA has also other formal mechanisms
like Defense Science Board Task Forces
where they can have a specific problem and
call together a group of leading
researchers to solve those problems they
have specific symposiums on problems.
The I sat task forces so
they have other ways on a less
sort of only once a year basis
that they can haul together
these leading academics to brainstorm
on how to meet the military's needs.
But this also can be done.
Informally it doesn't always only
have to be done formally for
example this star power program manager
says you know we were talking with
Paul Robinson about the notion of building
very high volume carbon nanotubes
that were functionally match and I said
Gee Rex always been working in that area.
Let's call him in Rex
a Nobel Prize chemist.
So we called him he was there in two days.
And so Lieber came over from Harvard.
We sat around and
it was a great discussion.
So here's the STAR program manager.
He's got a problem.
He's trying to solve and he calls up a
couple people and starts a conversation to
identify how they might be able to push
forward that technology and these people
aren't small shots right Paul Robinson
who he's mentioning is the director
of Sandia National Labs at the time
he's sitting around talking to him.
We're church smally is a professor
of chemistry and physics and
astronomy at Rice.
He won the one thousand nine
hundred six Nobel Prize for his
discovery of buckyballs and Charles Lieber
a professor of chemistry at Harvard.
He's a member of
the National Academy of Sciences.
He has over two hundred ninety papers more
than thirty patents these guys are what
we would even call Star scientists write
these are the people who have enormous
paper and publication records that
they are bringing to this boat and
yet if you look at their
biblio metric records.
This isn't going to show up in a patent
study because they've never patented or
published with each other.
These are people who are being brought
together to talk about directions.
Earlier in the stage of
technology development.
So this is actually my
favorite quote from the.
The whole thing because it just shows
what a different world that they live in.
So they've identified directions and
then they provide seed funding
to common things right.
So this structure
a program manager says so
I'll tell you the silicon germanium story.
The first guy to show me this actually two
guys was the guy who founded Amber waves
he showed me this was possible and
then Jason Wu and U.C.L.A.
he showed me a plot of bandgap as
a function of percent uranium and
he had two plots he came to DARPA and
he said look there's a dependency here it
is it follows band got theory and
I said Jason.
Two dots.
Don't make a program.
I need a third dot and they faxed me
a chart the next day so I sent him a small
seedling at the same time I called Bernie
a fellow at I.B.M. and I said Bernie.
Have you seen this bandgap dependency and
sulk and germanium you know.
Do you think it's something
we can exploit and he said.
Funny you should ask.
We've been looking at the same thing.
And we've got.
Some ideas as well.
So I funded him two million or
whatever it was.
So if you look at these right.
So you Gene for sterile The first guy he's
talking about who founded Amber waves.
He's a professional material science and
engineering at MIT He did found this
startup company on silicon germanium
he's got over one hundred eighty six
papers more than fifteen patents
his first paper on this topic was
in one thousand nine hundred six.
Bernie Meyerson That's Bernie
the guy at I.B.M. He calls up later.
He's the vice president at
the time of that call and
Chief Technologist of systems and
technology group.
He's got over one hundred eighty
papers more than forty patents
his prints paper wasn't also in
ninety two ninety six in this area.
These guys have never coauthored or
patented together and
if you believe in Darby's work on Star
scientists you might even say that they
would be institutionally isolated they're
much more likely according to that work at
least to talk within their Institution
co-author within their institution and yet
here's this program manager talking
to both of them funding them and
then in getting funding they have
to come to workshops once every
six months or more at times and they have
to tell each other what they're doing.
That's part of receiving the dark regret.
Right.
So not only has he funded these discrete
people who might not have been talking to
gether he's also bringing them together
and forcing them to tell each
other what they're doing so
in terms of validating directions.
One university professor and
one of our program manager he says well
see once you've gotten DARPA funding.
Then you go right ahead and
submit an N.S.F. proposal so
darkness funding usually comes and it's
our N.S.F. by the time by which time your
ideas are no doubt there people know
you you've published a paper or two and
then the guys at half staff say
yeah yeah this is a good thing.
So I set funding usually comes
in a second wave as such places.
Huge role in selecting key
ideas on the other side
program manager on the industry side
describes so the DARPA piece while large
was the validation for B.M.
to spend their own money.
The same way for the Intel piece Intel
ended up funding it internally but
the fact that DARPA went back
to them three and four times and
said this is an important thing.
This is important you know it got to
the Board of Directors and it got high
enough that they set up a division to do
this and you actually see that again in
the ten year period this is from the
earlier period where Intel isn't going for
the DARPA funding and all of a sudden
Intel starting to fund this internally.
So again to finish off the fifth is
that they don't sustain the technology.
So the DARPA program manager says.
So we ran all of these design experiment
concepts and you know we were doing really
great stuff really good science but the
tipping point is the fact that I.B.M. saw
the value in this to the point that they
started investigating it on their own.
So just to summarize five things they
identify directions both formally and
informally through brainstorming sessions
as well as flying around the country
in the field asking
researchers What are you doing.
What are you doing.
They see that in common themes
within the research community with
scientists who may not necessarily yet
be talking to each other and
then they force the scientists to
come together and tell each other
what they're doing by presenting
to each other in these workshops.
This provides they provide third party
validation to funding agencies and
industry and
they don't sustain the technology.
So what about the new DARPA and
in the paper I go into depth showing
how each of these things you
find again in the tether error
just with different recipients and I'm not
going to go into all that depth here for
the sake of the strategy of the audience
but I do want to talk about the diff.
And this so if we think for
a moment about the changes that have been
happening in U.S. innovation ecosystem.
We've had the shifts and the industrial R.
and D. model over the past thirty years
away from corporate R. and D.
labs to venture funded small medium sized
enterprises the idea being that our large
firms should be outsourcing innovation
needs to smaller firms and universities
through technology alliances and
acquisitions and as a consequence
we've been building especially in this
space on some I conductor's a complex
network of firms universities and
government labs with interdependent
innovation trajectories and
what we've been finding in the literature
is that this leads to new challenges for
technology development and the alignment
of incentives across firms and
the coordination across firms all of their
interdependent technology juries and
in as mocker and Mary pointed out
in supporting long term research
at the same time in
the computing industry.
If we look what is in
the one nine hundred sixty S.
the majority of computers
were owned by the government.
We were making about just shy of
two thousand mainframes or selling
just shy of two thousand mainframes and
by the one nine hundred seventy S.
we had just introduced our first
microprocessors and nine hundred eighty S.
we had just had our first
desktop workstation.
But the one nine hundred ninety S.
innovation and commercial I.T.
is outstripping the military.
So Secretary Perry is talking about
the government off the shelf initiative.
We have over two million P.C.'s sold and
computers are produced by hundreds and
hundreds of suppliers.
So by this point in time where we
are today both in the one nine
hundred ninety S. period and
in that sort of thousands period.
These changes have already happened.
But what you see is that the tether system
is going to work very differently within
that exact same system than the pretty
one thousand nine hundred just instead.
So as we talked about already tether
comes then we have September eleventh and
Iraq war we go from the one thousand nine
hundred to two thousand period of broad
area down Smith's open ended solicitations
of funding of primarily of universities to
these short phases funds being
tied to go nogo deliverables and
precluding universities and
small start ups as prime contractors
in many not in all solicitations and
requiring the formation of teams and
this being criticized by the academics.
So if we look at this new period.
What we see is as I mentioned
the similar process sees
in the languages that our program managers
for identifying directions formal and
informal they still have their
Defense Science Research Council and
in the field for seeding common themes for
creating third party validation.
But it's not the same people.
So you've got different recipients and
what's happening now is you're seeing
this coordination across
firms within industry right.
So I gave an early early
version of this talk where I
was telling members of the research
community that I was trying to understand
how DARPA influenced technology or
technology directions and
this university professor stood up and
was irate this person said to me
I can tell you what you're going to
find I had to ask if I could and
afterwards I said I was there at the DARPA
unique meeting in Jackson Hole and
they're all presenting to each
other what they're going to do.
They're all talking to each other and
they're all doing the same thing and
they hear is the firms in industry it's
Intel it's I.B.M. it's H.P. that's who.
She's referring to.
So let's take a moment and
let's take an example solicitation
now from the tether period.
So in phase one February two thousand and
six for
this solicitation ultra
narrow integrated circuits.
Moore's Law for photonics and beyond.
They have a superseded line nine months
to get your results out of the Liddy and
the teams are H.P. I.B.M.
with a start up sun with the same
startup MIT with B.S. systems and
MIT with analog devices these are the
first set of teams so you've managed MIT
is the leading one of these two
solicitation So that has happened here.
And H.P. and I.B.M.
and Sun have got in the other ones so
face to they've gotten rid of one
of the MIT teams that's now gone.
They get two years of funding
to meet their next goal H.P.
has now teamed up with Intel Intel
is joined in the mix I.B.M.
still with the same startup sun is
still with the same startup and
MIT is still hanging in there with systems
three March two thousand and eight.
They get five and a half years of
funding and only one team wins it.
It's forty four million dollars and
now Sun Microsystems has teamed up with
the same startup looks Terra a new start
up Co Tara and Stanford in the U.C.L.A.
have come into the mix and
are supporting that funding but
Sun's holding the prime contract and
the money in the system.
So if you look at what they're doing.
You ask people about what's going on or
what they're doing the startup company
will say so we were talking that they
were the seed of this original invention.
So we were talking to the doctoral program
out of her and they got interested in
the field and they got a program out of
this they got a bunch of people involved
in the program the bunch of people being
signed at I.B.M. and a playwright.
So the doctoral program manager says
I don't want people to go out and
do something in the basement and say I
developed the best results in the world
and a process that is totally incompatible
with what the rest of the industry does.
There was one condition imposed
on the teens and that was
that these things had to be developed in
a silicon seam OS compatible process.
So in something that matched.
With the main industry seem OS
platforms technologically and
if you ask the vendors whether or
not this is a good thing
he says DARPA funding is enabling the
system players to determine the direction
of this technology meeting these
prime contractors Intel H.P. Sun.
If you don't get the system guys involved.
You end up getting widgets that
don't work in the bigger picture and
others will talk about that their
framework for research within their
companies is five months six months
maybe three years five years but
that they're not able to look out this
far as DARPA is with this program.
So with the decline of corporate R. and D.
labs the vertical disintegration of
the ply chain in this particular industry
and the push towards open innovation and
these new challenges and in lining
incentives across firms and coordinating
those firms interdependent technology and
in supporting long term research.
This sounds from what people
are saying like whether or
not you know no statement about is that
good or bad but that the government
they're claiming might be playing
a role that everybody among
the system contractors were quite as gung
ho about DARPA but it doesn't conflict.
So if you look at it.
So this guy another
system contractor says.
So our company as a whole has just
shied away from government funding
that wasn't saying that wasn't
a value to the industry but
just trying to delineate So
our labs or whatever.
They'll get a little sharper funding but
most of that he said is hasn't
produced anything of value from
a commercial of perspective and
this guy is someone who's looking much
more in that five men time horizon
the start of company and by the way
he is one of the companies receiving
DARPA funding on the solicitation earlier
than the final contract came out.
So another startup company says
sometimes I'm very nervous about
getting too much focus on defense money.
I don't want to lose track of the fact
that I'm developing products not
technology my companies ideally.
For today's products but admittedly
not necessarily for the long term.
So again I think these actually support
in some ways that DARPA is not here
in the next five months or next three
years but looking and a longer time
horizon by the way both of them end
up as part of the solicitation and
getting funding from dark but despite
these comments by people who are more
on the ground so to discuss for a moment.
The doctor prodding their
managers in both periods and
I think to really get the full
depth of that you do need to look
at both of all of the quotes in
the paper and probably beyond that.
That they use the same informal
process see it in their language in
how they describe what their job is and
what they're going about
both in the period pre and
the post period during tether so
point that they talk about how they
go around identify directions.
They talk about seeding common
things within the research community
about that and
bring these people together and
they talk explicitly in their
language about building communities.
You hear repeatedly how they're
providing third party validation and
that's how they're period at start ups.
Saying that it's darkest funding provided
them with validation they didn't receive
and industrial community from D.C.'s
in among the platform leaders and then
not sustaining a check Knology getting
out in both cases you could almost see
this as needing If we believe the network
failures network failures so pretty.
Tether increasing knowledge flow
between what might otherwise be
institutionally isolated star scientists
in academia and in industry and
the tether period coordinating
interdependent technology platforms across
vertically disintegrated
firms in industry.
But what I think it's really
important to take away is
the role of the program manager.
So not in picking technology winners.
They're not the ones with the ideas so
the best program manager may not be.
Nobel Prize winner.
The person who are the central no to
which ideas flow who are going around
the country asking people
what they're doing and yet
they do need that technological expertise
and they do need a system wide vision.
They're in constant contact with
the research community understanding what
their emerging themes are matching those
themes to military needs I haven't done
a lot of talking about the military's role
betting on the right people connecting
disconnected communities in the research
world and standing up competing
technologies against each other and
all this time maintaining this
bird's eye perspective on what's happening
in the national innovation ecosystem.
So what I'd like to argue
is that this goes beyond
what we traditionally think of this
role of the doctor program manager
of the state merely being a broker or
a bridge or and
beyond that this necessarily needs to only
happen industrializing nations to one in
which a manager has the agency not only
to change but to architect existing
networks to achieve organizational and
in this case the military's goals.
So here.
That's to influence technology
should rectories to have time for
one slight slight slight or great so
that is that officially the end of
the talk but I have a thought piece
at the end because this only finds
itself in a footnote in the paper.
So my question to you is well with
the decline of the corporate R.
and D. labs and the shift towards
funding system platforms.
What really what balance then will enable
DARPA to continue to support paradigm
breaking technologies and so
if you look at what was stated
by a dark program manager in the mid one
nine hundred ninety S. He says well we
never state it publicly but I want to fund
those companies that will put Intel out.
Business.
I'm not interested in driving Moore's Law
the I.G.R. rest road map exists and
everyone knows what it is that is not in
the business of maintaining that road map.
We're in the business of cutting a path
across it and I leave it to you to ask.
If what the funding of Intel and H.P.
and sun if that's still really
happening in the in the teather period
or the.
He sense of time but
I suggest you put your
question about a fifteen minute
break like the one and
one zero three stuff and
there's I can tell you the science
advisor came someone said
I thought I was know
what to do with satellite and
that sort of what we
were going to get that correct.
So great so anyone
you know and the other five years
in business start somewhere
else going somewhere else.
Well.
So I.
Definitely not in the position
of prescribing policy.
But I will comment on two
things One is that since
has is no longer in office now
since two thousand and eight.
Regina Dubin is the new director of DARPA.
And has moved things very very far back
towards university
funding at least in name.
It's not clear to me looking
at what they're actually
to look at budget stuff if
it's six one zero six two or.
Does that really tell you what these
technologies are about it's hard to say so
basic more advanced more applied
funding regimes for DARPA but it at
least in name has moved and has very much
been trying to reach out to universities.
How much of a portion of
their funding is doing that.
I don't know but they're definitely true.
She is the director is trying to
shift the culture back towards
being closer with universities
to the other that I can.
So are we making a total shift or
not in our I think that remains to
be seen at least at the DARPA level.
The other common I can make is that I
gave this talk at Shinnecock in China and
it was one of the more fascinating talks
that I've given because they were sitting
there talking about their own
version of dark about the inability
of China at this point in time to really
have this type of dual use technology
funding because there are very strong.
Barriers between the military and between
the Ministry of Science and Technology for
political reasons but they were doing
a lot of talking about how you know.
Can this be done in a developing
country in a way that DARPA doesn't
in the United States.
So in the sense of influencing
technology directions.
Not for catch up but for
leadership and I think actually Dan.
Work talks a lot about Israel
making those types of decisions.
So Danny may be an equal
expert on other countries
that are better expert on
other countries than myself.
So you can sort of water.
Look at all of this sort of actually
already know about where this
research is going to roll dark
because it talks about you know
in light of the economic crisis that
we're in but he talks about wanting.
I don't want to go into
government out of funds for
instance from technology not as an intern
itself with the goal is that when I
mention producing products which
are good for economic growth.
So the DARPA model if there is such
a thing that you outlined it seems
very good for generating technology but
you know there are decomposition and
where I create these technologies
there's no guarantee that
the production development
benefit you know I mean here.
Does the door model still work in an era
when companies know I'm here reading
right kind of a loaded question.
It's a good question that
I'm going to
draw on two things because I feel like my
work here doesn't really speak as much to
your question is actually some of
the other work that Danny has mentioned in
this case it's the researchers
are in the United States what
DARPA is doing is building communities
among the researchers that are here so
I'm not sure a question I get more
more frequently is actually can you
do this without military right is if you
don't have the military as a market can
DARPA's prophecy still work and I actually
think a lot of the other literature as out
there suggests ways that that happened but
that's that's a loaded.
That's an interesting question in
terms of if not all the researchers
are in the United States.
So for moving toward.
Global R. and D. innovation system.
Can you still do this.
Nationally.
So
far the answer seems Yes What happens
if research is being led elsewhere.
It seems strikes me that DARPA is role is
almost in making sure that some of that
research is is being pushed forward
here toward our military needs
to bring in other work I would
say that in my own work.
What I've been looking at elsewhere is
how changing the location of companies
in their manufacturing changes
the economic ability of their innovation
trajectories and thereby the trajectories
of those companies themselves.
So in a world where the military
is no longer the major market and
how do you still influence
companies in their technology
decisions when there's going to be
a bunch of other forces pushing them for
market reasons or
production reasons in other directions.
I think that's a huge problem
facing our military today.
Yes.
Yeah
yeah
it's a great question.
Yeah.
Yes great.
So.
I am going to be able to give you
pieces of tethers from memory and
I have more in the paper but
he well the one thing
almost most direct to your question is if
you look at his comments to Congress right
when he comes in before September eleventh
and even after September eleventh.
This happened in the kind of subsequent
months maybe eight to nine months.
There's nothing about bridging the gap.
He's talking instead about
like monkey's brain and
how they're going to I mean he's talking.
Very much about
breakthrough technology and
it's a lot about a lot of his language is
about radical breakthrough technologies
which doesn't say what his
actions are going to be.
I think from the very
instantiation he was known as
a micromanager and so
unlike in other periods actually where
the program managers would just get
approval from the office director and
then it was a signed off sort of a cursory
sign off from the director he met with
every single program manager before
letting things that were true so that was
there from the start but his language
shifts dramatically somewhere about
nine months after after September
eleventh in his direction to Congress
suddenly talking about bridging the gap
some and about military applicability So
I think there's there's definitely a piece
of him and his micromanage erial style and
wanting to have outcomes that
was there from the start.
Also he talks from the beginning about his
solicitations having accountability and
milestones.
But this the funding of who
got funded he hard to say but
his language is not as immediate term
earlier on he comes from industry.
So not not from these companies but
from a consulting arm
that that's where he was before so
that was one.
The second question was I paid.
So there is a rule hall a coffee.
In these meetings where you have
to present your research but
you can petition and that something
is company confidential and so
if it's company confidential you still
have to and it can't be everything so
you have to still present
some portion of it and
you can say that these things are secret
sauce or whatever else for a company and
we don't want to be presenting it
to the other companies or you.
I don't actually know if that can be done
by the academics I know that can be done
by companies I would have to check that
to be done by academics but then they.
If that happened you still present to
the doctor a program manager at the same
meeting at the same workshop the separate
like section that you couldn't
present to everyone else and so
that's not an answer of who owns what.
My understanding is that there's
an answer of who tells what.
My understanding is and I should
double check on that as well is that
the company is maintaining the IP for
that technology but I I don't want to
I don't want that written in
stone without a double check and
YES I CAN HEAR WHAT DID I
mean by embedded this and
who's doing it with yes.
So in this case.
I mean by it's a great question.
I mean the doctoral program managers
are embedded in the technical community so
they're members of the technical
communities themselves they have been
publishing in that community and
they they know the people in
the technology in that area so
they come outside of that for their role
but they still know they're still
part of in the back yes place that.
Yes Yes Well the question is do you
mean formally want to present it at DARPA
or do you mean informally or via e-mail.
So the hardest presentation I've ever
given was given this at DARPA because they
appeared to have been under
some amount of order.
Well I can't decide if it was
the difference of hierarchy of people in
the room or if it was that they
were under orders not speak but
they literally sat there in a blank room
with the only person speaking being
the second in command afterward you know.
And maybe a careful comment here and
there by a.
A manager but informally actually
the there's been a couple of comments
one is in general very well about
the description of the role of
the program manager one piece.
I've got him back.
Is that the Microsystems Technology Office
and the D.S.O.
and maybe one other office may have been
more resilient to tethers changes than
other offices because
other offices were closer
to systems that were going to be
implemented directly in the military.
So this persistence of a certain
culture there might have
been able to sort of sneak by in ways
that couldn't buy all of the offices and
the other that I've often got in is
that what about the office directors.
Did you leave us out.
So and people not that that changes
the role of the program managers but
that the office directors have a rule
in system in making sure we're
thinking about the biggest
the bigger system.
So I think those are some of
the the other interesting
experience I've had with respect to the
communities response is I presented this
at the Information Technology
Innovation Foundation in D.C. And
actually there were former DARPA directors
or associate directors in the audience and
I had a moment where literally
two of them stand up and
said one said you know DARPA
is about the military.
You forgot in the military.
Where's where's the military and
the market and
the other guy stood up and said DARPA
is about economic credit you know.
It was sort of nice and I went back to my
earlier slide and said OK well you know
you guys are actually from this period in
this period and that changes within DARPA
but I do get comments about well
what about the military and
how much is that been left out of this
picture as as a market player and
I tend there's a piece by kind of flam
where he talks about in I'm not going.
You get the in the one
nine hundred ninety S.
period I'm not going to get
the period right actually.
But in one of those periods them talking
about that the it didn't matter if this
had applications to the military so I
think there are periods when it really has
been less of a driving function how
much less It is a great question.
But yes you know you're going to
ask him about DARPA Yes
yes.
Yeah great so
too to comment on that one is that there
is there is not an official office.
So the director of DARPA reports to
Congress in his in how he's doing so
there's not a specific
office that sits down and
says where you are accountable or not.
No tether set up a system of
accountability internally with
these companies or
with the recipients of the funding DARPA
has had by the Institute
of Defense Analysis
reports written on their success
in transferring to the military.
That's actually written by Dick Bennett
he's they've also had reports on
technical accomplishments.
So there's big volumes on their technical
accomplishments but that's not the same as
accountability and there is actually
research started at MIT building on this
work where one of their big questions
is Darpa is ability to rename So
you know it's something we started
out with strategic computing or
artificial intelligence and what do you
mean our not success now it's always
been this other name of what
we've been working on and
sort of the question of accountability is
rising in their work of how that happens.
Yes or no way
just because it's very much.
Yes we're going to meet some of the
so I think in my own work.
One of the things that I'm suggesting and
this is a personal suggestion is that
this might be a model where we
can take pieces of that into
other Reynosa policymaking and and
the compare ability you know N.S.F.
and I age are these really
doing how similar are those.
How different are those I think
those are areas where there has been
research and there's interest.
I do you know I would be very interested
in future research in terms of
this is work for the military can
it work for energy can it work for
Homeland Security definitely in the R.P.
either bait that's been a huge
David Mary testified before Congress and
specifically on those questions of
if you don't have a market such
as the military one of the memories points
was early but you have a place to have
these technologies purchased and
you know that as a company that that
he argues is a big role for defense I
don't I don't come out that heavily on it.
I actually I think if you look at
certain technologies in the more
recent periods there hasn't been
an defense isn't going to be the main
purchaser of those technologies that they
funded but they've still had influence but
I think that that's an open and
ongoing question yet.
That was
why it
is that
you know right.
So I think I'm about to make
an opinion statement not a right so
I think there is some level of doctors
working on bridging the gap but
you're not working on
getting the new funding and
some point in time you're going
to have an empty pipeline.
So that's definitely a concern but
at the same time
it is not clear to me
without looking at other
looking at the US system more broadly who
does and doesn't come in to these spaces.
So N.S.F. plays a very different role in
computer science funding than it did.
Maybe twenty or thirty years ago and
that so that role has changed.
A.T.P. was disbanded in tip was created
and temp is now supposedly working on
breakthrough technologies now can it have
can it really get the type of knowledge
access that the military could get back to
the question of you know markets if it's
just funding start you know new ideas
among startups does it have the technical
death if it doesn't have technologists
coming in as program managers into TEP
those might be reasons that it might
not be able to play the same role.
So so.
How our system as a whole adjusts as
institutions play different roles or
doesn't adjust I think you
would need to look broader and
with the maturity of
the technology you know
what my role in the story is
going to thank you again.