2011, TEXAS & GLOBAL ECONOMIC RECOVERY, WHAT'S NEXT
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 3:22PM Jim Brazell's Keynote Speech: IMN Texas Economic Recovery Conference, November 7, 2011, Driskill Hotel, Austin, TX.
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This transcript has been modified by the speaker for readability and in order to make a few factual corrections.
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On February 19th 1957, [New Braunfels’] General Bernard Shriver gave a speech in San Diego in which he proclaimed:
[“In the long haul, our safety as a nation may depend upon our achieving space superiority. Several decades from now, the important battles may not be sea battles or air battles, but space battles, and we should be spending a certain fraction of our national resources to ensure that we do not lag in obtaining space supremacy. Besides the direct military importance of space, our prestige as world leaders might well dictate that we undertake lunar expeditions and even interplanetary flight when the appropriate technological advances have been made and the time is ripe.... “Now, where does all this lead? My thought is that the evolution of space vehicles will be a gradual step-by-step process, with the first step beyond ballistic missiles being unmanned, artificial Earth-satellites and then perhaps unmanned exploratory flights to the moon or Mars.”]
(Schriever Air Force Base, Gen. Schriever’s Visionary Space Speech Turns 50, February 15, 2007 in STEM, 1957-2012)
For [having the foresight to deliver this message], the Secretary of Defense, Charles Wilson, reprimanded [Schriever] and told him to never use the word space again in a public speech. On October 4th of 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik from an R-7 [rocket] platform forever changing the American and global perspective about space and [technology] and [their combined] role in economic development, security and education. [What few people realize is Sputnik was the Russian’s test of the concept for a global positioning and targeting system—the ultimate high ground in military strategy].
[In response,] the Eisenhower administration and Kennedy administration created NASA, [created DARPA,] and increased funding to the National Science Foundation... Education reform drove hands-on learning into physics education so that students could learn cause and effect relationships in mathematics… Design, experimentation and [learning through trial and error] made hands-on learning more important in understanding and accelerating science education [and achievement] in America.
[In 1956 a group of university physics professors and high school physics teachers, led by MIT's Jerrold Zacharias and Francis Friedman, formed the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) to consider ways of reforming the teaching of introductory courses in physics. Educators had come to realize that textbooks in physics did little to stimulate students' interest in the subject, failed to teach them to think like physicists, and afforded few opportunities for them to approach problems in the way that a physicist should. In 1957, after the Soviet Union successfully orbited Sputnik, fear spread in the United States that American schools lagged dangerously behind in science. As one response to the perceived Soviet threat the U.S. government increased National Science Foundation funding in support of PSSC objectives.]
(MIT, n.d., "MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections, Physical Science Study Committee, 1956," last accessed July 11, 2011)] (STEM, 1957-2012)
On March 10th of 2010, the Air Force Space and Missile Command recognized this gentlemen, Dr. Francis X. Kane, a San Antonian, for being the Father of the Global Positioning System, Space-based Entry/Re-Entry vehicles (like the shuttle), hypersonic flight, and space-based missile defense systems. It was Duke Kane who was called on ultimately by General Shriver to run a project called Project Forecast where in [1963] they did a technology forecasting project to anticipate what the strategic technological environment would look like in the 1970s. It was the creation of our GPS capability flowing from Project Forecast as well as other technological systems and investments that ultimately landed man on the moon 12 years later.
[Colonel Francis X. "Duke" Kane, Ph.D., USAF, retired, (born December 12, 1918) is the space planner and engineer responsible for the design concept of the Global Positioning System (GPS).[1] Colonel Kane was General Bernard A. Schriever's Chief for Space and Ballistic Missile Planning at the U.S. Air Force Systems Command from 1961-1970. Colonel Kane was responsible for space systems planning in Project Forecast (1963–1964). Project Forecast was the longest range technology forecast undertaken by the U.S. military prior to 1963. Project forecast contemplated the strategic technological environment of 1975 and the requirements for U.S. advancements in air, space, missile and computer technology. In 1963, the Air Force Space Systems Division funded Colonel Kane to lead a classified project known as 621B. Phase I of 621B was for the engineering concept for a "space-based navigation system" that would later become known as the Global Positioning System (GPS). According to Colonel Brad Parkinson (USAF, retired), Project 621B had "many of the attributes that you now see in GPS. It has probably never been given its due credit."
This [photo] is Lunar Capsule 5 [Eagle] rolling over the dark side of the moon and you see in the horizon the Earth. Ultimately the investment in NASA and space-based systems resulting from [Texan] General Shriver’s early call [spurred US economic] growth and economic competitiveness [since the Man in Space Program].
[Today, the questions and circumstances are different than those of the Sputnik Era; however, the need for urgency and its goal is the same—innovation. On January 4, 2011, President Obamasigned the reauthorization of America COMPETES with bi-partisan support from the Senate and a 228-130 vote in the House. The bill reauthorizes various programs intended to strengthen research and education in the United States related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The 21st Century “competitiveness and STEM” movement is marked by support from across institutional and party lines including labor, industry, military, and political parties (in principle).]
Today, we don't have a shiny steel orb the size of a basketball [beeping] telling us that we have to change, that we have to compete in the global economy in a different way. We don't have an external object telling us that we have these trends and forecasts and the way things are that we've been talking about all morning. We do have a new target, the target is Mars now. A lot of people wonder why it is we should go to Mars or why it is that we should send humans to Mars instead of just continuing to send robots like the Phoenix Mars probe.
On May 25th of 2008, the Phoenix Mars probe, this giant backhoe sitting on the Martian surface scooping up soil samples found two things. Does anyone know what they are? Water, or ice, and salt, ultimately answering why it is that we should send humans and not just robots to mars--because we’re half-way to a Margarita.
Today, we don't have a shiny steel orb, [Sputnik], but we do have the trends we've been talking about all morning: We have globalization, the increasing inter-linkage of our economies, right? A butterfly flaps its wings in Germany and we feel it here. We have what's going on in education. Some of the trends were hit on today relative to our ability to increase education beyond high school whether that's a two year technical college degree, or a university degree, [Bachelors,] Masters, or a Ph.D.
We also have security concerns. Perhaps most prevalent among security concerns today is the threat to cyber security or the implications of our guard being down relative to the networks that wrap the Earth. [These cyber physical systems] now control the critical infrastructure that we depend on for daily life in the 21st century. When you flip on your water to wash your hands in the morning there is a physical network of water distribution that is controlled by a digital and mechanical system of valves essentially a cyber physical network enabling our water systems, our electrical systems, our gas systems, our petroleum systems… all critical infrastructure of the 21st century.
[The designs, infrastructure, gadgets, and electronic transactions at the heart of our electricity networks, the PlayStation 3 video game network, defense networking and medical devices have given rise to distributed robotics applications--cyber physical computing applications, services and infrastructure. Cyber physical systems are technological systems and processes that use computers, software and/or networks to direct the operation of mechanical systems (or vice versa).]
And then we have [energy]. Whether you look at that in terms of our need to increase our diversification in energy production or our need to step up and save the planet, [we see an emergency]. Half of Americans agree that what's happening with environmental degradation is essentially our Sputnik moment today, while the other half will agree that we need to increase our diversity in the energy supply.
These four trends are really our virtual Sputnik today. The combination of globalization, what's happening in education, security, and [energy] constitutes our virtual Sputnik. The fundamental question in the 21st century if you run in education circles and even in circles like this [State leadership, economic development, banking, industry and workforce] tends to fall around something called science, technology, engineering and mathematics [or, STEM]. The fundamental question of the 21st century and particularly related to education and the economy is not about science, technology and doing mathematics but rather the ability to produce innovation.
The question, the fundamental question of the 21st century, is how do we organize for and produce innovation and innovators? [Market] innovation gives rise to economic growth, wealth creation, job creation, quality of life, security, survivability of the human species, sustainability of the planet and the environment.
As I go forward this is the fundamental question that I would like to address: How do we organize to produce innovation and innovators from our education and civil systems? To go deeper, we are in a giant inflection point--from a certain type of economy to a new type of economy. We've talked about industrialization and post industrialization for 50 years… What’s post post-industrialization? What’s next? We are on the cusp of a complete re-articulation of global economic systems which means that we’re seeing industries, markets, technologies, human capital, organizations, institutions and even curricula [in education] being restructured. If you look at modern technologies and how they are organized we can see that the human capital is organized in a different way to produce that innovation.
I would like to show you a couple of examples of innovation, the all elusive innovation, happening in our education system today. There is innovation in our education system today. [These are] examples of schools that have reframed the way that knowledge is connected and the way that students are engaged. Let me introduce you to Fredericksburg High School, Fredericksburg, Texas. [In 2008] the students created a Red Bird 12 rocket and launched it at Mach 2 [to a height of] 100,000 feet--high school students. This is the equivalent of the [response to the] October Sky [in 1957] but in the 21st century. [VIDEO – The Rocket Boys and Girls of Fredericksburg Texas.]
This is Denton Independent School District in North Dallas, Texas. Students in 2010 created a 79 volt [electric] Dragster and captured a high school world speed record.
[The school in not only world class in STEM and CTE, but also in areas of excellence ranging from sports to the arts. Denton ISD is like a modern “Boston Latin School” born of the Finger Lakes of North Dallas, the football culture of the Dallas Cowboys, the virtuosity of the Dallas Symphony, the synchronicity of the Dallas Ballet, and the rigor of a small town with two universities.]
(The Rocket Boys and Girls of the 21st Century)
This is Clark Magnet Schoolin Glendale, California… the students last year won the Lexus Eco Challenge by conducting original scientific research that showed not only where lobster in and off the coast of California had a high amount of [toxins] in their shells. [They also] pulled samples of lobster from all over the world and found very similar… except for a couple of key markets globally… showing that there is pollution in the food chain.
[VIDEO - Clark Magnet student speech to 12,000 attendees of the ESRI international conferenceoutlining their Lexus Eco-Challenge National Grand Prize winning scientific research. Esri is built on the philosophy that a geographic approach to problem solving ensures better communication and collaboration. Geographic information system (GIS) technology leverages this geographic insight to address social, economic, business, and environmental concerns at local, regional, national, and global scales.]
(ESRI)
These students [pictured] are from Central Florida. This is this Civil Air Patrol Team, a group of students competing in the [cyber defense] competition called Cyber Patriot. [The technical infrastructure for the competition] is run out of San Antonio, Texas in partnership with the Air Force Association. [Team Wilson from Central Florida Air Patrol] won first in the nation [at Cyber Patriot]… they have an open division for any high school in the country to compete and San Antonio took third in the nation in the open division for computer defense [in 2011].
These are examples of innovation. This is called Career and Technical Education [CTE]. Have you heard of [CTE]? It's the modern equivalent of shop class. You remember when you were in high school and had shop class…. Well, that's not what vocational education looks like today. Today, [students and teachers] are making rockets and launching at Mach 2 to 100,000 feet, [to the edge of space]. They are breaking world records building electric dragsters and they are competing in cyber defense competitions.
Modern vocational education results in internships for high school students such as the one conducted this past summer in San Antonio, Texas. [The Information Technology and Security Academy students] that I showed you competed [in Cyber Patriot] and placed third in the nation all got their security clearances and they interned this past summer at the 24th Air Force. The 24th Air Force is Air Force Cyber based in San Antonio, Texas, bringing $1billion a year to our $10 billion a year IT cluster. The students interned this summer [with the 24th Air Force] and defended US Defense networks against threats… In one case [the Information Technology and Security Academy students were] able to expose an attack on US Defense networks--high school students in modern vocational education [Career and Technical Education]. One of the students is a [candidate] to enter the Air Force Academy [2012-2013].
In San Antonio, we've built a Pre-K to Ph.D. pipeline for cyber security over the last 10 years. It was supported by about a million dollar grant from the Texas Workforce Commission and the Governor of Texas [to build the 3rd grade to 8thgrade early education for cyber-STEM and robotics]. Under the round of $20 million for [Texas Workforce Commission, Office of Employer Initiatives], innovation grants San Antonio captured some of that money and was able to stand up its cyber security pipeline. Many of you may be familiar with your schools competing in the FIRST Robotics competition from elementary, middle and high school. That was actually piloted by Andrew Schuetze [Alamo Colleges Workforce and Northwest Vista College] who is here today… [FIRST Robotics was] deployed later to the rest of the State.
Functionally, the definition of a well-rounded student in the 21st century is changing. The definition of a well-rounded student still includes the liberal arts. It still includes that focus on humanities and the social sciences and science and mathematics and also the arts and leadership, the well-rounded student we've always talked about. But now, [the well rounded student has all of this] plus Career and Technical Education. The well-rounded student in the 21st century is evolving to one that connects Career and Technical Education with high academic rigor, [STEM, the arts and leadership].
OK, I am going to ask you a question and you don't have to say anything out loud or talk to anybody. I just want you to get a picture sound, emotion, smell, whatever comes to you and I ask this question… What do you think of when I say Silicon Valley? Do you think of the arts when I say Silicon Valley? Do you think of the arts when I say Austin, Texas? That's interesting.
I was at the Innovation, Creativity and Capital think tank here in Austin at UT doing contract work for about seven years from 2002-2009. One of the projects was funded by Austin’s Chamber of Commerce, Waco and San Antonio… The initiative [was] called the Digital Convergence Initiative [it was led by Dr. Alex Cavalli and Dr. Eliza Evans from IC2 Institute]. Has anybody ever heard of [the Digital Convergence Initiative]? A couple of you [have] heard of [DCI]. I was directed by Dr. Alex Cavalliat IC2 to identify within that big project who were the emerging technopoly of the world? Who would be next as Silicon Valleys in the world? And, What is the new model? What does it look like now? This was in 2005 as compared to what IC2 said the technopolis looks like in terms of structure in the past.
We use this technopolis [model]. I know many of you may be familiar with [George Kozmetsky and the Technopolis Model]… [The model] aggregates public and private [actors] in a framework for understanding… innovation. The Innovation Creativity, and Capital think tank at UT Austin has done this work for over [35] years and they are active in 20 different countries today helping people around the world build their high-tech economies. What we found is that the next generation technopolis is focused on [knowledge intensive production and innovation—knowledge innovation, structurally, they connect] nano science, bioscience, IT and the arts [to define what is next in regional high tech economic development].
[The Digital Convergence Initiative] research came out in 2005. I was just talking to someone in the hallway out here who is on the panel this morning who works in Austin who is saying ‘hey we’re doing all the visualization and super computing to understand how the economy works and how innovation works’, and really what that is, is that artistic layer on top of the mathematical layer [referenced earlier]. That's really what we were talking about with this convergence of nano, bio, IT, chemistry and the arts.
[Next generation technopoleis (high technology regions) are organizing across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and arts (cultural arts and copyright industries) for what is next in high technology economic development. This analysis work was originally published in part in the Digital Convergence Initiative: Creating Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Texas (September, 2005). The DCI analysis has been updated where possible with new research and unpublished prior works… This research, led Dr. Eliza Evans and Dr. Michael Sekora, indicates that hard technologies (e.g., computers, sensors, telecom, actuators) have a reciprocal innovation effect with knowledge-intensive products (software, animation, visualization, & audio). In other words, advancements in one area require and spur advancements in the others synergistically to produce innovation and sustainability.]
(5th World and the Speed of Light Generation online)
…we found all of these people around the world that were focused on digital media and digital convergence but what we didn’t tell everyone else was that my little skunkworks project with 10 students at the University of Texas at San Antonio [UTSA] inside of the digital convergence initiative was looking at what's next in general for the technopolis.
We identified the following countries, city regions, or city states as the next [Technopoleis]: (1) Central Florida from Orlando to Daytona to Gainesville to West Palm to Tampa. Dr. Kozmetsky had identified this as a emerging technopolis in the 1980s [though, today this is increasingly a statewide network]. (2) The San Diego Metropolitan service area, not LA, not San Francisco, the San Diego Metropolitan service area [this is about what is next]. (3) Washington DC metropolitan service area as well as (4) South Korea and (5) Finland.
Today, we know Finland and South Korea switch in the international rankings [for innovation, investment in R&D] and education...What we found when we looked at Finland was that upon founding their country a little over 100 years ago there was significant focus on public-private partnership but also on design and the arts being fundamental to science and technology. It's interesting if you look at a map of Finland which has about 5 million people, so [Finland] is comparative to this region from Waco-to-Austin-to-San Antonio. In terms of [technology, Finland] highlights key areas focused on biotechnology, medical, natural sciences and business technology. They also focus on art and design. Helsinki is of course a center for art, architecture and design the world over. This [picture] is from 2003, we did the work in 2005, [Finland is] building entire cities dedicated to the connection of the arts, modeling and simulation, IT, chemistry and biology. They are starting to build mega cities or research- and development-based cities focused on this intersection [of hard and soft industries and knowledge innovation].
In South Korea we found the same thing, the creation of a digital city just outside of Seoul. I learned recently at an international library summit where we looked at the top libraries in the world in San Antonio that [the library] in Seoul [is a] dibrary, a digital library. You see a bunch of computers on the ground floor [in this picture]. On the upper floors are production studios for animation, modeling, simulation, CGI effects and movies and the creation of digital content--music, animation, video games, and storytelling… These regions [focus on] knowledge intensive industries--copyright industries… biotech is in many ways a copyright industry because these are knowledge intensive products. Linnea Fletcher from Austin Community College Biotech is nodding yes, yes.
On January of 2011, the Minister of Education in South Korea announced that the entire education system from Pre-K to Ph.D. in South Korea would launch not a STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] initiative but a STEAM initiative focused on the intersection of arts and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Essentially the same thing we teased out in 2005 [South Korea] launched [STEM+ARTS] as their innovation system for education. We are focused on innovation in America but what we seem to forget is you can't really do [innovation] without the arts. The heart of human expression and the ideas for what is possible are embodied by the arts. Nobel Laureates are 17 times more likely to have a background in the arts though the connection seems elusive when we try to make the direct connection between the arts and mathematics performance.
I have spent the last eight years working probably more in Florida on this connection between STEM and the arts than I have been in Texas. Simply I think because I have a relationship with the film commissioner of Florida [Lucia Fishburne] and she has been interested to push this on to the economic development scene in Florida. Three or four weeks ago I was in Florida to launch their very first five year strategic plan in the history of the State. [The Florida Futures Summit was] focused on energy and biotech and transportation and all of these hard industries we traditionally focus on. We talk about workforce and economic development investment but the copyright-based industries in Florida represent a $29 billion [economic impact to the State in 2009] with the highest [projected] growth rate [as a percentage] for employment of all industries in the state. This is a wealth creating industry why don't we focus on similar kinds of investment for venture capital, entrepreneurship, education workforce and economic development [for STEM+ARTS industries—knowledge-intensive industries]?
You can see this is the region [in this map of] Florida. [Florida’s High Tech Corridor] is run by one guy who invests [$55] million [in entrepreneurial high tech growth and R&D]. [The Corridor] has created a retention strategy wherein they invest in entrepreneurial companies and growth and there is a requirement that those companies who receive the money hire people from their university system and community college system. What we know about Florida is a lot of people come there to get a university education and then what, they leave, right? This is their retention strategy, give her a job, get her involved in the research and development, create intellectual property, retain the [human and intellectual capital and create wealth].
[According to Randy Berridge, president of the regional economic development initiative, the Corridor is funded by the state legislature to bolster emerging industry sectors such as Digital Media/Interactive Entertainment. Since its inception, the initiative has leveraged approximately $55 million in research funding for R&D projects that have engaged 350 companies, 2,300 graduate and doctoral students and 300 faculty researchers at the three Corridor universities. These projects have been matched by nearly $150 million in company dollars and in-kind donations, and have generated an additional $730 million in attracted federal funds. This Matching Grants Research Program, along with workforce, marketing, and entrepreneurship initiatives, are all primarily managed by volunteers and committees composed of area economic development, workforce, government, academic, and industry members, alongside additional project consultants. Matching Grants Research Projects and other initiatives are designed to engage faculty, students, and partner companies on applied research activities, to market the region, to create new curricula for community colleges (seven Associate’s degrees with 100% transfer credit to area universities in science and new art fields such as Modeling, Simulation & Robotics at Daytona State College and Digital Media at Seminole State College of Florida), and to train local K-12 teachers about high tech careers and industry needs (directly impacting 2,600 students and teachers who have participated in 70 programs in the region).]
(5th World and the Speed of Light Generation)
When you look at [Orlando’s] marketing and advertising for the region you can see this connection between the soft and hard industries. The copyright-based industry focus is an opportunity that we typically miss in the education side of things. There is a great opportunity in education because arts-based programs are often cut, finding it difficult to justify their existence in difficult financial times. I have been working with different state arts organizations to get them to understand that the copyright-based industries in America represents 6% of GDP, $129 billion so [STET+ARTS integration] makes sense in terms of education [and innovation systems].
[COMPUTER DISCONNECTED/POWER/BATTERY FAILURE]
You are looking at the economic development [advertisement] for Orlando that says: “Putting Imagination to Work.” Their brand [in Central Florida] is putting imagination to work and you see coastguard cutters [mixed] in with digital media and cartoons because you can see the mix in modeling and simulation in Orlando between entertainment and the military industrial complex. If you look at the digital media companies--there are 10,000 companies mainly centered in areas of population density but also because of quality of life along the coast of Florida. There are incredible things happening in West Palm Beach right now. [West Palm Beach, Florida,] is becoming the next place to be not only for digital media and arts but for biotech and energy and research and development as well. There is a silicon coast being born within this larger framework of a state technopolis [Research Cove at Treasure Coast]. That was what we really figured out in Florida is that once you wired up Orlando, Gainesville, West Palm Beach, Daytona and Tampa you got the state map, so you take this technology corridor investing [$55] million and you straddle it across the state to include Miami and other key places [and you get the Florida State Technopolis].
In Florida, they start digital media arts education programs in eighthgrade. [This photo] is of eighth grade students [at Occoe] middle school who are putting together televised video announcements for the whole school. [Students] are running the cameras, they are running the control room and this is tied in with academic courses in English language arts and mathematics and the other traditional academic programs.
This steps up into their high school programs where they are doing modeling simulation and gaming. [This picture is from Orlando Tech]. That's a school classroom. [Students] take their English and math courses and traditional academic courses and then they go into the basement of Orlando Tech. They learn how to make music. They learn to be recording engineers. [In this picture,] they are building video games for healthcare. They are not building video games for entertainment; they are building video games for occupational health therapy. [This program at Orlando Tech] feeds up into high tech arts and entertainment programs at Valencia Community College and then this feeds out to the university system. So they build effectively a sixth grade to Ph.D. pipeline of formal education programs [connecting] academic courses and Career and Technical Education courses.
[This picture] is a 150,000 square foot facility named the Gateway Center planned for West Palm Beach [Florida]. They are going to [build out] 50,000 square feet for [the Florida State University] FSU Film School, one of the top film schools in the world. [An additional] 50,000 square feet [will be built out] for the company Digital Domain for CGI effects in movies and video games. And, [another] 50,000 square feet for a digital media lab so they can create the future using students who are interning [with Digital Domain]--all they have to do is walk across the hallway.
In San Diego, this is Dave Kenny, a Top Gun Pilot, he is working with Flack Maguire and they have been building a program to get students to become pilots, aviators. It started in a location-based entertainment program on the USS Midway. [During] off hours they work with low income students on Microsoft Flight Simulator 10 to [train to] become pilots.
In the Washington DC metropolitan service area you have states like Maryland who have stood up modeling, simulation and gaming programs for high school students. [Gaming] has been booming for 10 years. I was part of a program at TSTC [Texas State Technical College System] while I was at IC2 [Innovation Creativity and Capital Institute]. I did a forecast on the video game industry for the State of Texas. After we published that game report there were 15 gaming programs started in Houston, Texas alone within a year of publishing the report. In Maryland at the state level they now offer a standardized curriculum for modeling simulation and gaming that connects high academic rigor-- calculus and even trigonometry with modeling simulation and gaming [the art and math layered on-top of one another]. They do this through a framework called a Program of Study. What a program of study does is it connects your academic courses with your Career and Technical Education courses from ninth grade to sixteenth grade [Bachelors Degree]. Students who are in a Program of Study are on a pathway to get at least an industry certification if not a two year degree or a four year Bachelors Degree. That's all planned [and executed] through a Program of Study.
Everyone is talking about the jobs [this morning]. The story we’re missing is called the middle-skill jobs. Do you know what a middle-skill job is? A middle-skill job is a job that requires at least two years of education beyond high school. [According to the National Skills Coalition,] in 2009, 29% of jobs [in Texas] were high-skill jobs and 31% of its workers had a university degree or higher to meet that demand. But in 2009, 51% of jobs were middle-skill jobs, where only 40% of our workers were ready to take those jobs on. That's where the gap is, it's in the middle-skill jobs. [The challenge] is producing students from high schools [and adults] that go on [to get at least] two years of education beyond high school, an industry certification, or a two year degree.
Everyone is talking about STEM, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Everyone nodded their heads when I said STEM, right? Well, guess what percentage of jobs are STEM jobs, [6.4%]. Only [6.4%] of jobs in America are classified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as STEM jobs. Half of those jobs are IT jobs, networking and information technology. So, when someone says to you STEM, now you know that half of [STEM] jobs are IT jobs. That's pretty significant. Now let's bounce over to the other 3%. Can a scientist or an engineer, biologist or chemist do their jobs today without a computer? No. So they are all cyber-STEM jobs, right? All 6.4% involve computers [cyber] significantly and what about the rest of the jobs [the other 93.6%]? Has technology changed what it is to be a teacher or an insurance agent or a jeweler or a convenience store [owner] or working at McDonalds? Technology changes everything.
All jobs are really about technology. When we talk about STEM we miss the technology component. When it comes to the arts this is where it gets really interesting. $126 billion of our GDP comes from copyright industries. This is 6.4% of US GDP so if you add into STEM the technical arts component you can start to sort of grow these strategic areas. My suggestion is if we are going to focus on 6% for STEM we should focus on another 2% or 3% of jobs that are effectively architects, digital artists, digital photographers and digital arts-based jobs. This connects STEM and the arts.
One more time, what do you think of when I say computer? You got a picture, you got a sound, you got something, computer, what do you think of when I say computer? Is that what you thought of? Because there are five billion [mobile phones] and they've all becoming broadband devices. Let me show you what you are holding in your pocket today. You have as much computing power as was used to put man on the moon in your pocket if you have a phone with a digital camera, video camera and broadband. Okay. So let's crack one of these open.
Here is an iPhone 4. Break it open. Let’s bust that chip open and what do you find inside of the iPhone 4? A gyroscope. This is a mechanical system embedded in the iPhone 4. The electronics interface to the gyroscope is the width of one red blood cell. That's called nano technology. The nano tech thing is here—it’s not coming. Here is a guy who is swinging his iPhone like a golf club. He is playing a game that allows him to combine the gyroscope with the accelerometer and to pick a golf club to play golf in the middle of New York City by overlaying the physical world with the video game.
The gyroscope is a mechanical system embedded in the iPhone representing the marriage of a computer, an electrical system, software and mechanical system. That is called robot. Robots are everywhere in the 21st century. Your car, your sprinkler system, your security system, your ice-maker, your dishwasher, your dryer, all of these things are mechanical systems under the control of computer systems. The robotic revolution is not coming, it's here. Del Tesar is here from [University of Texas] UT Robotics. [Del] has been saying it for 30 years since the semiconductor revolution but it's finally here.
[Today, we are experiencing similar effects in the design and cost of motors and actuators to the period in which Gordon Moore famously proclaimed Moore's law (1965) as a way of time pacing semiconductor innovation in the market and at Intel. Moore's law states that semiconductor density doubles approximately every 18 months. Not a law of physics, rather, a way of time pacing the market, Intel progressed in 1965 from 60 devices (resistors and transistors) on a chip to 1.7 billion devices on a chip in 2005 (PC Magazine, last accessed November 18, 2011). Tesar's Law holds that the 8 orders of magnitude increase in computer performance over the past two decades reflected by Moore's Law is accompanied by an 8 order of magnitude performance increase in tightly coupled and integrated cyber physical systems (integrated actuator, computer and software)--intelligent actuators.]
Let me show you again what you have in your pocket. Here is a mobile phone. You turn on the video camera, the blue line is GPS and the red pin is the GPS [location] pin. Someone is holding up the phone. The GPS is overlaying their video camera, so everything in that picture is moving. Now we have [an overlay of] the physical world and a virtual world. Do you see it? [This is the 5th World.]
[We now live in a new space, a new reality, and a new world, mediated by robotics. I call this new existential space the 5thWorld—not cyberspace. The 5th World is the space between cyberspace and everything else… The 5th World, or "Augmented reality toys," are described in the final Master’s thesis of a French Designer, Frantz Lasorne. Merging the basic characteristics of video games and real-life toys, Lasorne's mediated experiences enable virtual parameters commonly used in video games (power, life, magic, experience, attack, weapons, etc.) to be attributed to tangible toys linking cyber and phsyical worlds. With Lasorne's approach, it is possible to create video game mixed with the real world. For example, a child's bedroom could become a detailed environment for play straddling the cyber and physical worlds--making them one. Lasorne's design and many applications of transmedia, augmented reality and mixed reality today demonstrate Marshall McLuhan's idea: "The mediascape is an extension of the landscape."]
(5th World and the Speed of Light Generation)
It marries physical, virtual, social and cognitive. Everybody is talking about social networks. How is this stuff changing how we think? How is it changing how we interact and relate to each other? It connects and brings about the birth of an entirely new reality. When television [was introduced] and radio came out they had a significant social impact because it changed our perspective of the world.
Imagine the games we can play. [This picture] is of a university R&D project. When you go to school in the morning you hold your phone up and you are Packman--Waca, Waca, Waca, Waca. Do you see it? You are literally packman; you hold your cell phone up and the physical world has become Packman. What happens when you take a left hand turn to [miss a Packman] ghost and hit someone on a bicycle and they fall off and hit their head. Is there a lawsuit [because you were not present in either—the physical or virtual—you were lost somewhere between the two]?
Here is another one it's called TIE fighter… You play with your phone. You can do this today. You hold it up and your phone is a Star Wars TIE fighter [view]. You fight on whatever scene [is in front of you]. It lays the game on top of the physical world. Here is another one. It's a magazine. Hold the magazine up to your iPhone or to your webcam and it [simulates a holographic image] on top of the magazine article, in this case for a Mini [car]. Here is one for jewelry you cut this thing out of the magazine, a piece of paper, strap it around your wrist, hold it up to your webcam and it shows you what the watch would like on your arm if you bought it. Doesn’t that change advertising? Is it not fundamental? Is it not big?
Okay, here is another one. Point your video camera at your shoe and now your shoe has become walking art. Hold your shoe up and the little tag on the front of your shoe becomes the joystick so you can interact with the [virtual world and games]. This exists today. This is not the future, the future just caught you. What we are seeing is the birth of new concepts of play, new concepts of learning and teaching, new concepts of time, place, geography, community, on and on and on and on.
DARPA gave Carnegie Mellon $20 million to teach kids about robotics. [Carnegie Mellon] put [the software] in the cloud so kids can come in over the internet free and design FIRST [and Vex] robots in a virtual world. They offer this through a web browser [named the Computer Science Student Network]. DARPA gave $10 million to [Georgia Tech and] a company called Dassault Systems in Detroit. This software [Delmi] is a [process lifecycle management platform] for engineering that costs $420,000 per seat. Dr. Del Tesar, five years ago, paid half that to use [the Dassault software] for research and development robotics projects at UT Austin to design battlefield surgical systems. [Del’s robots are designed to] go on the battlefield to pull people in and remotely doctors operate on patients. [Where the software costs Del] $200,000 a seat, we can get the software for $1200 for a 20 station lab pack now through this DARPA [MENTOR] program. [DARPA MENTOR] allows students to use this software that costs [4] millions dollars to have 20 stations. [With this software] students can design these complex robotic systems [auto concepts, wind energy systems and our goal is the path to space-based solar power].
Robots are now part of the fabric of the 21st century. They are everywhere. This is a band aid called PICS. You put it above your heart, it picks up you heart rate, respiratory rate, bodily fluids and overall activity, beams it through an internet gateway sitting in your house and lands it in the doctor’s office. Medtronic has now made a pacemaker they expect be on the market in the next 3.5 years the size of a Tic-Tac. It's inserted into your heart through a catheter. And, there is an app for that. Your cell phone acts as the gateway to send the data to the doctor’s office. It can also sound an alarm in case you are going to have arrhythmia or an event that will cause you to blackout to tell you to pull your car over or to sit down [if you are standing]. This is where we are with technology today
Here is the 1000 mile per gallon fuel cell car created by high school students at the Los Altos Academy of Engineering in Los Altos, California. This is the kind of work students are doing in Career and Technical Education today. We [need] people like you to pay attention because your mental frame for vocational education is shop class and wood working. Today modern Career and Technical Education puts every student on the path to at least a two year degree.
[Dr. Del Tesar from] UT Robotics has been saying for 35 years or so that we are on the cusp of the same thing that was happening in the semiconductor world in the mechanical world, the world of motors and actuators, the world of robotics. This is Evan Gray. Evan is from San Antonio. He is now a senior in high school. When he was 9-years-old he won the K-Bot Kinex world championship for robotics. They had to waive the age for him to compete. He won it 2 years in a row. So we've been working with Evan and Andrew Schuetze in San Antonio to pilot [FIRST] Robotics in San Antonio [for the State of Texas]. Scott Gray is sitting right here. This is Evan’s dad. He works at J.M. Waller and Associates in San Antonio, the defense contractor. He got a project to re-engineer the Gatling gun mount on the Seahawk helicopter. He engaged the high school students. You see Evan there on the far right at the [RAM] STEM Academy in San Antonio, one of the governor’s STEM academies. [Evan and his classmates reverse] engineered the gun mount on the Gatling gun in parallel to engineers doing this at J.M. Waller and Associates.
The guy in yellow is Hugh Davis. Hugh Davis is here. He is the Apollo 11 Lunar Capsule 5 [Eagle] Chief Engineer. Do you remember that picture of the Lunar capsule rolling around the dark side of the moon, [Hugh] designed that. He put Armstrong and [Buzz] Aldrin on the moon. Hugh has been working with [Solar High] for a couple of years to conceptualize a project that was tested in the 1970s by NASA, Boeing and Raytheon to capture sunlight, solar energy, using satellites. [The plan is to] beam [the energy] to Earth with microwaves like radio and television. [The goal according to Duke Kane is to build an “energy cloud.”] [Solar High is working to] capture solar energy and beam it to Earth by radio wave. [Hugh] tested it in the 1970s. [Space-based Solar Power] works, the problem [has always been] the cost to get all the satellites in space.
[Hugh] has been working with [other] retired NASA and Air Force engineers to update the forecast on the launch window to build space-based solar satellites and change our energy system here on Earth. This summer Col. Duke Kane[pictured here] was given an award by the Society for Design a Process Science [SDPS]. Remember Duke is the Father of the Global Positioning System and he lives in San Antonio. SDPS came in and gave him a lifetime achievement award for his dedication to fostering the next generation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics [STEM] students in America through [San Antonio’s Space Teams and the Texas Institute for Educational Robotics].
Stan Gatchel is here from the Society for Design and Process Science. Oh by the way SDPS was founded by Dr. George Kozmetsky from the Innovation, Creativity and Capital Institute here at UT Austin. We want to take that software that we can now get for almost nothing and put it on a Dell server, mount it in the J.M. Waller datacenter and allow students in Texas and all over the country to design our path to space based solar power and space-based exploration and settlement--in other words to enable students to create our future.
Using this platform, students will be able to design any kind of complex [cyber physical] system. [Duke] calls it the speed of light generation. [The goal] is to chart our path to space-based exploration and settlement using the untapped power of our next generation.
Today we took a look at what's going on in [high tech] regions, we've taken a look at what's happening with computing and finally I have spoke a little about space-based solar power. When I started out I told you about Sputnik and I talked to Duke before I came up and here is what the Father of the Global Positioning System says at 92 years of age. “The key to economic grow this creativity. San Antonio and Austin just need to get on with it. We need to collaborate and work together to make economic growth happen.” The key to sustainability of our economy and wealth creation, the key to survivability of our species, the key to job creation is you. Thank you very much for what you do and thank you very much for being here today.