Biotechnology panelists Wolf von Maltzahn (Rensselaer), Thomas D’Ambra (Albany Molecular), and Lawrence Sturman (Wadsworth Center).

Policy makers, industry leaders, and representatives from regional technological industries met at Rensselaer for a two-day National Innovation Initiative (NII) Regional Summit Sept. 7-8, sponsored by the Council on Competitiveness.

A national organization of corporate, academic, and labor leaders, the Council on Competitiveness was formed 16 years ago with the intention of developing a workable economic framework for keeping America competitive in the global market, and for fostering innovation.

The NII is the council’s yearlong effort of nearly 20 CEOs and university presidents — and more than 400 other innovation stakeholders and thought leaders across the country — to develop a strategic and actionable 21st-century innovation agenda for the United States.

Rensselaer’s regional summit was one of only a few being held across the country in preparation for the council’s final report to be unveiled at a National Innovation Summit Dec. 15 in Washington, D.C.

Many components of innovation were explored during the two-day summit, by speakers that included U.S. Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary David Sampson; Congressman Michael McNulty; IBM CEO and Chair Samuel Palmisano; New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno; Debra Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness; Kelly Lovell, president of the Center for Economic Growth, and Charles Gargano, chairman and CEO of Empire State Development Corporation. MapInfo Corporation Chairman John Cavalier and Wolf von Maltzahn, acting vice president of research at Rensselaer, also moderated panel discussions.

“While national policies create the critical, basic environment for innovation and competition, it is often at the local and regional level where firms, universities, laboratories, and entrepreneurs interact most closely to drive innovation. We had to go to the regions to really understand what was occurring,” said Wince-Smith. “This summit is shaping the national debate and the national agenda.”

Summit participants discussed how to attract and keep talent, venture capital investment strategies, the need for funding basic research, national business policies that would foster innovation, and the importance of collaboration between academia, industry, and government.

“The United States must prepare for a new wave of innovation,” said IBM’s Palmisano. “Where once we fine-tuned our organizations for efficiency and quality, now we must optimize our entire society for innovation.”

IBM Chairman Samuel Palmisano and President Shirley Ann Jackson at the Council on Competitiveness regional summit at Rensselaer.

Panelists also concluded that to grow a more skilled, adaptable work force, retooling the K-12 educational system to teach students new skills needed in today’s work place is crucial. Students today and in the future will need to be adaptable, creative, and technologically savvy; students will need to be problem solvers, work well in groups, be highly productive, and have a commitment to long-term learning, the panelists concluded.

David Sampson, of the U.S. Department of Commerce, said, “The convergence of various technologies now and into the future in nanotech, biotech, IT, and cognitive technology will create new opportunities and new industries...The question we now face is how to connect knowledge creators with knowledge commercializers.”

Panelists stressed the importance of collaboration between the scientists and researchers who develop new technologies and processes, and the people in commercial industries who can take an idea and turn it into a marketable product.

“The unique and precious attributes of discovery and innovation are critical components in the formula for continued prosperity in an advanced economy,” said President Jackson, a principal of the NII, at the conclusion of the summit. “To sustain a continually rising standard of living, we must find the ways to boost growth and sustain long-term productivity. While innovation is critical to our prosperity, it also is innately valuable globally. Innovation has a multiplier effect, building markets, creating jobs, improving health, lifting hopes. It is this to which the world looks with anticipation and hope.”

Photos by Kris Qua
Originally published in Rensselaer Magazine, Winter 2004

Published December 1, 2004