American technology is growing impotent in the face of flagging of U.S. educational standards, foreign business monopolies and so-called free-trade agreements.
But American ingenuity has continually overcome tremendous setbacks in its historic rise to global leadership ” and former Harvard Business School Prof. John Kao thinks America can do it again, using the bold regional development model employed by La Jolla and greater San Diego in recent years.
“It’s a great example of how a city can transform itself based on an innovation strategy,” he said
The people in this region have “managed to figure out how to create an unusually close relationship among the public, private and academic sectors,” Kao added.
San Diego’s success in technology development isn’t because the region is unique, he said. On the contrary ” it’s because private, educational, industrial and government leaders decided to focus on a couple of strategic areas.
“So I (am) very interested in the whole explosion of life sciences and communications technology here,” he said. “What impresses me first and foremost is (the) sense of community and how that’s translated into an ability to ignite hundreds and hundreds of new companies.”
Kao’s message is that the same strategy applied nationwide could ignite American innovation like a Roman candle.
He will propose his strategy for the U.S. to regain its technological preeminence Monday, Jan. 7, at 7 p.m. at UCSD’s Revelle Forum at The Neurosciences Institute, 10640 John Jay Hopkins Drive.
Tech revival is also the topic of Kao’s new book, “Innovation Nation: How America Is Losing Its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters, and How We Can Get It Back.”
Kao said “Innovation Nation” is an analysis of how new technologies originate throughout the world, what policies other nations have developed to foster new innovation and how the U.S. can regain its technological edge through new commitments to scientific research and education.
Drastic steps must be taken to fortify America’s technology portfolio or American prosperity will be sacrificed, Kao said. Continuing along the same path the U.S. has followed for decades isn’t an option.
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “We will always retain a strategic advantage in one particular area or another, but America will no longer be the preeminent technological force if we don’t change direction.”
Before teaching business at Harvard, Kao was a member of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention rock group and played keyboards on many albums.
“I still do (play),” he said. “I have unaccredited tracks from the late ’60s “¦ but I was 18 and not a member of the musicians union.”
Kao also produced several motion pictures, including 1989’s “sex, lies, and videotape.” More recently, Kao served as an economic advisor to Democratic presidential candidate and New York senator Hillary Clinton.
Admission to the event is $35. To register, call UCSD Extension, (858) 882-8000, or visit www.extension.ucsd.edu/revelleforum.