ITIF President Rob Atkinson will join former President Bill Clinton, Fareed Zakaria, Former FCC Chairman Reed Hunt, Arianna Huffington and others at an event in Washington on March 16th from 9:30am to 1:30pm at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center to discuss these issues. On that occasion ITIF will release a new report explaining how the dot-com economy has been, and will likely continue to be, one of the principal drivers of economic growth and quality of life throughout the globe.

ITIF is pleased to host the team from the Federal Communications Commission spearheading the development of recommendations to integrate broadband into key components of society – and people’s daily lives.

This conference will bring together government officials, consumers with disabilities, industry groups, and academics to discuss how to fulfill Congress’ vision that all Americans, including people with disabilities, share fully in the benefits of broadband.

Dr. Darrene L. Hackler, an innovation economist, has joined the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation as a senior fellow.

Last year, Silicon Flatirons co-hosted events, respectively, with Public Knowledge on FCC reform, and ITIF on innovation economics and new models of governance. This conference is a follow-up and confluence of those two topics: Where do we stand on efforts at FCC reform? And how do new models of governance and standard-setting fit into that reform effort?

Steve Norton joined ITIF in 2010 as communications director

On President Obama’s first day in office, he released a memo calling for “an unprecedented level of openness in Government” and increased “transparency, public participation, and collaboration.” After one year, has the impact of the use of technology for open government been substantive or inconsequential?

A new report by ITIF Research Fellow Richard Bennett explains how mobile networks are changing as they become part of the Internet, the implications mobile networking has for public policy, and how policymakers can facilitate the flowering of the mobile Internet.

Watch the event release for a new report A new report by ITIF Research Fellow Richard Bennett explains how mobile networks are changing as they become part of the Internet, the implications mobile networking has for public policy, and how policymakers can facilitate the transition to mobile broadband.

Please join ITIF for a panel discussion on the role of IT in the intelligence community, the barriers to IT system upgrades, and what additional steps Congress and the administration can take to ensure that our intelligence analysts and law enforcement agents have the IT tools they need to keep us safe.

A number of key players in the Open Internet – or net neutrality – debate have refined their positions in the last few months, but there is still disagreement about how far these regulations should go into the mobile networking space and their specific details.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson will be speaking at The Atlantic’s upcoming State of the Union for Technology event on February 9th and 7:45am. The panel will address to what degree president Obama has made inroads on his promise to promote technology in government and what needs to be to make more progress.

At this event Carnegie Mellon Professor Erica Fuchs examines the impact of offshore manufacturing on innovation, using the photonics and automobile industries as case studies.

In this series of reports, ITIF explores international IT application leadership in five fields: health IT, mobile payments, intelligent transportation systems, e-government and electronic IDs.

In a new report, ITIF examines the international leaders in ITS and suggests steps the United States should take to close the gap.

Join ITIF for the release of a report that will identify the leading countries in intelligent transportation systems, explain why the United States lags so far behind, and offer a set of policy recommendations for how federal and state governments can take steps to accelerate the deployment of intelligent transportation systems.

A new ITIF report makes a compelling case that expanding the federal research and development tax credit would help create 162,000 jobs in the near term and enhance the nation’s long-term economic competitiveness.

Please join ITIF for a presentation by Syracuse University Professor Milton Mueller over the movement to challenge exclusive property rights over informational goods and promote the concept of openness in communication-information policy.

The Internet is a complex “virtual network” designed to serve a variety of needs, and as such it does not readily lend itself to traditional telecom regulatory models. This filing urges the FCC to proceed with caution on open Internet rules.

In an article in the journal Regulatory and Economic Policy in Telecommunications, published in Spain by Telefónica, Rob Atkinson discusses next generation broadband networks (NGNs).

It is time for the U.S. government to take global theft of U.S. intellectual property, especially digital content, much more seriously. A new ITIF report finds that the U.S. government can and should do more to support industry efforts to reduce digital piracy, a growing problem that threatens not only the robust production of digital content, but U.S. jobs.

Please join ITIF to discuss a new report documenting the current state of digital piracy and describing how innovative technology such as content identification can be used to reduce piracy.

Please join ITIF, in partnership with UK Trade & Investment, for a discussion with Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, UK Business Ambassador and former Minister, UK Trade & Investment.

Join ITIF to debate the merits of behavioral advertising and discuss the evolving nature of online advertising.

ITIF President Robert Atkinson participated on a panel discussing “Leadership and the Innovation Economy: Finding the Political Will to Work Together”, at the Innovation and Economy Conference.

With unemployment north of 10 percent, there is renewed interest in a job creation agenda. But many of the proposals put forth to date overlook two key sources of job growth going forward: exports and innovation.

ITIF Senior Fellow, Richard Bennett discusses how video, peer-to-peer and other recent trends are dramatically altering how the internet is being used.

The recent disclosure of a confidential Congressional document has at least one congressman calling for a ban on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software, but a closer look at the problem reveals that this effort would merely be treating the symptoms, not the disease.

A new report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Breakthrough Institute, Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant, is the first to thoroughly benchmark the clean energy competitiveness in four nations: China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. The report analyzes clean energy investments and policy support for research, manufacturing, and domestic demand, with a particular focus on six key technologies: wind, solar, nuclear, carbon capture and storage, hybrid and electric vehicles and advanced batteries, and high speed rail.

A new report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Breakthrough Institute, Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant, is the first to benchmark public sector clean energy technology investments in four nations: China, Japan, South Korea and the United States. Please join ITIF and the Breakthrough Institute for a discussion of the report’s findings.

In this report ITIF identifies the leading nations in mobile payments, explains why the United States lags so far behind, and offers a set of policy recommendations for how the federal government can take steps to speed the arrival and adoption of more sophisticated forms of mobile commerce transactions.

Join ITIF for the release of a report that will identify the leading nations in mobile payments, explain why the United States lags so far behind, and offer a set of policy recommendations for how the federal government can take steps to speed the arrival and adoption of more sophisticated forms of mobile commerce transactions.

In this webmemo ITIF senior analyst Daniel Castro and research analyst Scott Andes discuss Fareed Zakaria’s book The Post-American World and dispute his conclusions that the United States has little to worry about in terms of international competition and innovation.

In the latest issue of Internet Computing, ITIF discusses the ongoing debate on globalization as to whether the world is flat, spiky, or “post-American.” ITIF puts these competing viewpoints in perspective and presents the key lessons policymakers should learn from these debates.

If the United States is to achieve the promise of the broadband revolution it will need to ensure that a much larger share of Americans are subscribers. And while policies to spur the deployment of broadband networks are important in achieving that goal, policies to spur adoption are even more important.

Please join ITIF to discuss the findings of a new study “Demand-Side Programs to Stimulate Adoption of Broadband: What Works?” by Professors Janice Hauge and James E. Prieger. In addition, ITIF will be releasing a report “Policies to Increase Broadband Adoption at Home” that details a number of policy proposals that could significantly spur an increase in broadband adoption.

Internet regulations pending in the United States can either facilitate or impede Internet evolution depending on detailed definitions of packet discrimination, traffic shaping, network management, and carrier business models. Join us for a discussion of the tension between regulation and innovation in the Internet context.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson will be video blogging once a week for Internet Evolution on hot topics in IT and internet policy.

Digital infrastructure, specifically broadband, supports jobs both within the broadband industry and throughout the economy. If capital expenditure falls, either through unfavorable market conditions or regulatory or other actions taken by government investment levels will decline and jobs will likely be lost, at least in the short term.

Should wireless handset manufacturers like Apple and Palm be forbidden to share innovation risks with network operators? Congress and the FCC have been besieged by advocates seeking a ban on the marketing arrangements that make risk-sharing possible, but the technology mandate necessary to accomplish the goal would impair innovation

ITIF lays out ten key questions it believes are critical to answer accurately before any regulatory decisions are made.

Professor and author Eric Brynjolfsson, one of the world’s leading authorities on the role of information technology in driving economic growth and business competitive advantage, will present findings from his new book Wired for Innovation: How Information Technology is Reshaping the Economy.

Cybersecurity is finally getting increased attention in Washington; however, one problematic idea that appears to have gained some traction is the development of a national certification program for cybersecurity professionals. While ostensibly targeted at the public sector and to protect critical infrastructure, it will have broad implications for the private sector. Such a proposal, while sounding helpful, will offer few benefits, introduce burdensome costs to the government and the private sector, and not address the root cause of most cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

This report finds that both the United States and the United Kingdom commit roughly the same percentage of total public medical research funds to health informatics. However, the United Kingdom is uniquely positioned to benefit from advancements in health informatics research because it is significantly ahead of the United States in its transition to electronic health records among primary care providers. More importantly, the National Health Service (NHS) has made an important strategic decision to emphasize medical research as one of its core missions. To benefit from the full potential of health informatics, the United States should develop the capability to share medical data for authorized research in a timely and efficient manner.

American universities play an important role in spurring technological innovation, job creation and U.S. economic competitiveness. But they can do more, especially if the federal government makes a more concerted effort to help universities commercialize and transfer new technologies.

The United States is losing ground quickly in the innovation sweepstakes to Japan, Denmark and other nations. There’s nothing mysterious about why: These and other nations have designed and funded federal policies to spur innovation, and we have not.

ITIF Research Fellow Richard Bennett filed comments with the FCC regarding regulatory approaches to licensed and unlicensed wireless spectrum. The filing offers preliminary guidance on encouraging innovation and investment in wireless networks by moving the FCC’s regulatory approach fully into the digital realm.

Join ITIF for an event to discuss the recent ITIF report that benchmarks national innovation policies and analyzes what the United States can learn from the worlds’ ten most innovation-forward countries.

Please join ITIF for the release of a new report that reviews the historical development of the Internet to show that it has always had intelligence built into the core of the network and that it will have to going forward.

Many advocates of strict net neutrality regulation argue that the Internet has always been a “dumb pipe” and that Congress should require that it remains so. A new report by ITIF Research Fellow Richard Bennett reviews the historical development of the Internet architecture and finds that contrary to such claims, an extraordinarily high degree of intelligence is embedded in the network core.

The global economic downturn has sharpened the debate over whether the current
structure of globalization is sustainable. But this debate existed long before the crisis, and it will continue unless we take serious steps now to create a new kind of globalization that shifts the core economic policies of nations from mercantilist, export-led strategies to innovation-based, domestic-growth strategies.

Under the guise of “consumer protection”, the recent legislation in the California legislature introduced to ban self-checkouts in California grocery stores is one of the latest effort by neo-Luddites to dampen technology’s influence in society.

In this report, ITIF Senior Analyst Daniel Castro explores the lessons nations can learn from the global leaders in health IT adoption. The report helps answer the questions, “Which countries are leading in health IT adoption, what explains their success, and what lessons can other nations learn from these leaders?” The report concludes with specific recommendations for policymakers to jumpstart progress on health IT in the United States.

Please join ITIF for the release of a new study “Explaining International Health IT Leadership” that explores the lessons nations can learn from the global leaders in health IT adoption.

In this report, ITIF outlines the more than $100 billion invested by G-20 countries in IT-related stimulus. While most G-20 countries have passed economic stimulus packages to confront the global economic downturn, more could be done to use IT investments to aid in economic recovery, create jobs, and lay the groundwork for long-term economic benefits.

Join ITIF and a panel of international experts to discuss IT-based stimulus investments in G-20 countries and the role of ICT in supporting global economic recovery.

In FCC Chairman Genachowski’s long-anticipated statement on net neutrality rulemaking today, the Chairman made the claim that the Internet architecture is both unbiased and future-proof. However, as ITIF notes in a forthcoming report, Designed for Change: End-to-End Arguments, Internet Innovation, and the Net Neutrality Debate, the Internet’s architecture doesn’t make it future-proof, the process of experimentation and continual improvement does; rule making can seriously jeopardize Internet flexibility unless it’s undertaken with great care.

ITIF Senior Analyst Stephen Ezell’s article, "America and the World: We’re Number 40!", in September’s Democracy Journal examines how the United States has lost its lead in developing innovation policies (and thus risks losing leadership in high-technology innovation), what other countries have done to capture this lead from the United States, and how we can get it back.

Innovation policy tends to get short shrift in Washington. In this article in Democracy: a Journal of Ideas Rob Atkinson argues that perhaps the most fundamental reason for this is that policymakers take their cues on economic policy from the economics profession, and most Washington economists subscribe to the neoclassical economic doctrine that does not understand the importance of innovation and sees almost no role for government in it.

In this NPR post ITIF President Rob Atkinson discusses how higher productivity can not only lead to economic gains but also improve our quality of life by allowing Americans to do more and work less.

ITIF offered guidance to the FCC’s Big Ideas workshop on the future architecture of the Internet and the role American researchers can play in bringing it to fruition.

While well intentioned, congressman Ed Markey’s (D-MA) Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 fails to address the core issues within the net neutrality debate, and in doing so may cause more harm than good.

Complaints by public interest advocates about being excluded from the FCC’s technology workshops amount to “working the refs”.

Although once offering the most generous R&D tax credit in the world, the United States now ranks 17th out of the 30 OECD countries.

In this blog post Rob Atkinson discusses how, contrary to recent comments made by an EU spokeswoman, the EU is not the world leader in broadband performance. In fact, the United States appears to lead Europe in broadband when both speed and adoption rates are considered.

In a recently published book by the Policy Network, Social Justice in the Global Age, ITIF President Rob Atkinson shows how the ICT revolution, not globalization, is at the heart of the social and economic transformations of the last quarter-century.

South Korea is poised to become the world leader in green technology, through a wide array of government policies supporting green technology, strong national leadership and a substantial commitment of public funding for this effort. Other nations should look to the South Korean example as they develop their own national green IT strategies.

In his recent blog post ITIF Research Fellow Richard Bennett discusses the false net neutrality crisis triggered by reactions to an inadvertent Denial of Service Attack caused by 4chan.org.

A new ITIF report, Effective Corporate Tax Reform in the Global Innovation Economy, examines the issue of corporate tax reform and lays out key principles for policymakers to consider as well as specific policy recommendations for crafting an innovation-based corporate tax code.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) will host an event to examine the need to reform the U.S. corporate tax code, based on a new ITIF report, Effective Corporate Tax Reform in the Global Innovation Economy.

This ITIF event will examine the issue of corporate tax reform, including laying out the principles that should guide corporate tax reform given the realities of the global economy and the types of specific policy recommendations that should be considered. ITIF will also release a new report, Principles of Corporate Tax Reform in the Global Innovation Economy.

Today the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) released a report examining the need to reform the U.S. corporate tax code to foster America’s global competitiveness in the new innovation economy.

In this FCC filing ITIF discusses the policy and non-policy factors that affect broadband deployment and outlines an appropriate policy framework for a successful national broadband strategy.

Rob Atkinson presentations at the 2009 WFS conference in Chicago.

Please join ITIF and William Bonvillian, Director of the MIT Washington Office and a former senior adviser in the U.S. Senate, at an event to discuss key finding from his book, Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution.

Rob Atkinson argues anti-RFID privacy advocates should spend less time creating paper tigers out of RFIDs and focus on the enormous societal gains that are being achieved through RFID technology.

In a new ITIF report, How IT Can Enable 21st Century Schools Tim McDonald and Ted Kolderie of the Education|Evolving, discuss why the existing school reform movement has stalled and how information technology (including computers, software and communications) can enable the emergence of fundamentally new kinds of schools

Please join us for a discussion of a new ITIF report, How IT Can Enable 21st Century Schools with the report authors, Tim McDonald and Curtis Johnson of the Education|Evolving. The authors will discuss why the existing school reform movement has stalled, how information technology can enable the emergence of fundamentally new kinds of schools.

In this online debate between Iqbal Quadir and ITIF President Rob Atkinson, Atkinson argues that because of United States’ reliance on market forces alone to spur innovation it risks falling behind Asian nations that make innovation a national priority.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) President Dr. Robert Atkinson announced today that Dr. David Washington has joined ITIF as a Senior Fellow.

In a wide ranging discussion, a roundtable jointly sponsored by ITIF and Silicon Flatirons focused in on some of those points as well as highlighted some continuing areas of disagreement among a group of thoughtful policy observers and key stakeholders. The new ITIF-Silicon Flatirons report, A Roundtable on the End of Scarcity, Open Architecture, and the Future of Broadband Competition Policy, is a summary of that roundtable discussion.

In an ITIF report to be released, Duke Law School professors Stuart Benjamin and Arti Rai propose that the Obama administration (or Congress, if Congress is willing) create an Office of Innovation Policy.

In a new report, Structuring U.S. Innovation Policy: Creating a White House Office of Innovation Policy, released today by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, Duke Law School professors Stuart Benjamin and Arti Rai propose that the Obama administration (or Congress, if Congress is willing) create an Office of Innovation Policy that would draw upon, and feed into, existing regulatory review processes but would have the specific mission of being the “innovation champion” within these processes.

Join ITIF for a thoughtful debate on the impact of privacy laws on technology diffusion in health care.

In this BusinessWeek article ITIF President Rob Atkinson analyzes the cap and trade debate through the lens of the four prevailing economic doctrines in Washington, and argues that an innovation-economics approach to global warming that does not rely just on prices or regulation, but on a proactive “green” innovation strategy is required if we are to successfully reduce our global carbon footprint.

In a recent article in the Houston Chronicle ITIF senior analyst Daniel Castro along with Rice University’s Dan Wallach and Chris Bronk discuss the importance of creating safeguards against cyber attacks. While the government cannot address the threat of cyberspace attacks alone, it can play a meaningful role in fostering the type of public-private partnerships that will be able to help secure our digital infrastructure.

Please join the Brookings Institution, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and the Breakthrough Institute to discuss the need for a explicit innovation policy to address the challenge of global climate change.

In a testimony before the Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Rob Atkinson discusses why discriminatory taxes on wireless services have a negative impact on economic growth and innovation.

On Internet Evolution, ITIF discusses the cyber security challenges facing the Obama administration and the role government can play in meeting these challenges.

In the digital world a decade is a long time, yet federal government websites are using the same restrictive policy on “cookies“—small data files stored on a user’s computer—established during the Clinton administration. In this report, ITIF looks at the origins of this federal government policy, the current uses of persistent cookies, and proposes a new framework for the use of persistent cookies on government websites given current trends in e-government. The goal, ITIF argues, should be to loosen the restrictions on the use of cookies and balance privacy against other equally important goals such as usability, accessibility and transparency.

On Internet Evolution, ITIF responds to a Washington Post article on the role of the private sector in certifying health IT systems. ITIF argues that government should work with industry in developing health IT system standards.

In an article for McKinsey & Company’s book “What Matters: Ten questions that will shape our future” Rob Atkinson and Stephen Ezell examine where the world’s innovation hot spots will be found in the future. They write that the most innovative countries will be those that embrace a model of “innovation economics” that places technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship at the center of economic policymaking, explaining how countries need both competitive market and policy environments to support innovation.

Please join ITIF to discuss how “Fiber to the Library” (FTTL), as a national spearhead deployment project, could quickly deliver access to next-generation broadband.

Join ITIF and an expert panel for an event exploring policies Congress and the Administration can consider to drive the use of IT to enhance mobility, increase transportation safety and make a positive impact on the environment.

All things being equal, everyone would prefer a faster Internet. But what are the real benefits that it would bring? Join the conversation on Internet Evolution as Rob Atkinson describes some of the findings from a recent ITIF report.

Rob Atkinson explains why our tax code ought to reflect the value of innovation in economic progress. To that end, we should distinguish between individual and corporate tax rates and create a robust R&D tax credit to spur the type of invest in tomorrow’s innovation that will help revitalize our economy. Finally, we should tax environmental externalities to shore up funds for cleaner technologies.

Please join us for a provocative forum with award-winning scientist and science fiction writer David Brin general to explore how we can restore faith that progress and innovation will lead to a better future

Join ITIF & LSE in London to discuss findings from a report that estimates the impact on employment of additional investment in three important technologies: broadband Internet, intelligent transportation systems, and the smart grid.

The London School of Economics (LSE) and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) release a new joint report that analyses the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in aiding economic recovery in the UK.

In this report, ITIF & LSE Enterprise estimate the impact on employment in the United Kingdom of additional investment in three important technologies: broadband Internet, intelligent transportation systems, and the smart grid.

Please join ITIF for a debate on the recent Google Book Search settlement, its implications and the broader issues of orphan works and digital libraries.

One of most heated broadband policy debates concerns whether broadband in general, and fiber networks in particular, should be provided by private carriers or local governments. In an article in “The FTTH Prism,” Rob Atkinson and George Ou argue that that despite the promises of municipal fiber, the actual success rate of these community fiber projects has been lukewarm at best and in many cases a failure at worst. The article explains why fiber is not necessarily the only technology to focus on, how faster speeds are evolving, why municipal fiber “over-build” projects are economically inefficient, and why municipal fiber hasn’t succeeded in many cases. Finally, it presents a policy framework for thinking about this issue. (see page 17)

Please join ITIF and our distinguished panel to discuss how IT is shaping medical research and learn about current projects to harness massive amounts of computing power and data to tackle important health issues. In addition, this event will explore possible national strategies to advance these technologies for the benefit of all Americans.

Due to the nature of the broadband market there are significant tradeoffs between more competition and the goals of efficiency, lower prices, and higher speeds and broader deployment. Thus it is a mistake for policy makers to assume competition is a panacea to all broadband policy problems. In a recent article in the Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law ITIF President Rob Atkinson unravels the broadband debate from both the perspective of an engineer and an economist and then evaluates the four main policy options towards broadband competition.

The Federal Reserve has reported that household net worth plunged $11.2 trillion in 2008. In this Atlantic article, Rob Atkinson argues that American wealth did not decline, rather all that changed was this: The prices at which American asset owners can sell their assets fell by $11.2 trillion. But the prices that buyers have to pay for those assets also fell by $11.2 trillion. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. So let’s stop talking about wealth loss, and let’s get to work creating the kind of world we can be proud to pass on to our children.

ITIF will release a report on the need for next-generation broadband in the United States. The report will document how the transformative functionalities that next-generation broadband enables will unlock a wave of innovative new Web applications, delivering benefits to consumers, society, businesses, and the economy. While getting broadband service to the Americans who lack it is an important policy target, the report argues that supporting the deployment of faster broadband networks will be crucial to enabling next-generation Web-based applications and services that will play important roles in improving quality of life and boosting economic growth.

In this report, ITIF argues that supporting the deployment of faster broadband networks will be crucial to enabling next-generation Web-based applications and services that will play important roles in improving quality of life and boosting economic growth. While getting broadband service to the Americans who lack it is an important policy target, next-generation broadband will deliver a wave of new benefits to consumers, society, businesses, and the economy.

Later this month Congress will consider legislation to eliminate the exemption on performance royalties that terrestrial radio has enjoyed for years. In this WebMemo, ITIF argues that Congress should promote technology neutral policies that do not unfairly advantage or disadvantage any particular technology or business model. Moreover, Congress should ensure that the rules and regulations governing the royalty rate setting process are fair and reasonable for all broadcast platforms.

Innovators continue to find new ways to use information technology (IT) to make our lives better. Looking forward, IT will continue to be a critical component of solutions to many social challenges. But policymakers must create the right environment for technological progress. This article in the March/April 2009 edition of IEEE Internet Computing offers 10 guiding principals for creating technology policy that spurs and sustains digital progress.

In this event, ITIF will release a report that uses 16 indicators to assess the global innovation-based competitiveness of 36 countries and 4 regions. Thr report finds that while the U.S. still leads the EU in innovation-based competitiveness, it ranks sixth overall. Moreover, the U.S. ranks last in progress toward the new knowledge-based innovation economy over the last decade.

ITIF uses 16 indicators to assess the global innovation-based competitiveness of 36 countries and 4 regions. This report finds that while the U.S. still leads the EU in innovation-based competitiveness, it ranks sixth overall. Moreover, the U.S. ranks last in progress toward the new knowledge-based innovation economy over the last decade.

In a new report the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission lays out the financial crisis our nation’s surface transportation system is in and suggests both short term and long term solutions.

Korea recently declared its ambitious vision for Low-Carbon Green Growth in order to deal with the climate change issue and create a new development paradigm. Dr. Suk Joon Kim, President of the Korean Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), will discuss the new Korean low-carbon, green innovation strategy with a particular focus on the role of information and communications technology (IT) in the strategy. He will be joined by Dr. Jung Hyup, Senior Researcher, STEPI.

Please join us for an event to discuss current and proposed broadband stimulus proposals and what provisions are most important to ensuring the largest possible impact on broadband deployment.

ARS Technica’s tech policy People to Watch 2009 ranks ITIF President Rob Atkinson as one of the most influential people in the technology policy.

Click here to read the article

In the Fall 2008/2009 issue of the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, ITIF lays out a framework for the new administration’s technology policy to help spur growth and progress throughout the economy and government.

The first two waves of the IT revolution offered state and local IT leaders amazing opportunities to make government more efficient, improve services and increase transparency. Today, an emerging third wave is making it possible for governments to solve pressing public problems in fundamentally new ways.

Under current tax law, U.S. companies can defer the U.S. tax on the profits earned by their foreign-based subsidiaries until they transfer those profits back to the parent company here in the United States. In their new report, Robert Shapiro and Aparna Mathur analyze the impact of temporarily reducing the U.S. tax on repatriated profits on U.S. jobs, capital investment, and the financial squeeze.

The ideal fiscal stimulus measure not only creates jobs and drives economic activity in the short run but also boosts quality of life and economic growth in the medium and long run. Support for scientific research in the stimulus package accomplishes both goals. In this report, ITIF finds that spurring an additional $20 billion investment in our national research infrastructure will create or retain approximately 402,000 American jobs for one year.

The need for robust stimulus package provides a unique opportunity to spur the deployment of broadband telecommunications, and as ITIF has documented, to create or retain a substantial number of jobs. But unless broadband stimulus measures are crafted in a way that spurs the most investment for a given amount of public support, the opportunity for economic stimulus and broadband deployment will be reduced.

Please join us for an event to discuss current and proposed broadband stimulus proposals and what provisions are most important to ensuring the largest possible impact on broadband deployment.

A new ITIF report shows that the number of jobs filled by telecommuters could grow nearly four-fold to 19 million and deliver substantial economic, environmental and quality of life benefits for the United States over the next 12 years. Spurred by advances in IT, especially the spread of broadband, telecommuting is already the fastest growing mode of getting from home to work. Thanks to its potential to cut costs, increase productivity, and expand the universe of potential employees, telecommuting is also emerging as a standard business strategy for a larger number of organizations. The report calls for government to pursue policies to accelerate and maximize telecommuting, including spurring the deployment and adoption of broadband, which is an essential facilitator of telecommuting.

Click here to read the full report.

Many forward-thinking countries have made innovation-led economic development a centerpiece of their national economic strategies during the past decade. While many nations have taken the innovation challenge to heart and put in place a host of policies to spur innovation, the United States has done little, consequently falling behind in innovation policies and risking falling behind in innovation performance as well. This article compares U.S. innovation policy to that of other leading industrialized countries across five topic areas: programs to establish civilian technology and innovation promotion agencies; services innovation initiatives; national levels of R&D funding; tax incentives for research and development; and policies regarding high-skill immigration.

Please join us on January 13, 2009 for a breakfast forum on Globalization and Technology Standards as four internationally recognized experts in the field provide an overview of the global framework for standardization, and the respective roles of the government and private sector in the United States in setting direction for the U.S. standards system and its interface with the global system.

This report provides a detailed analysis and estimate of the short-term jobs impacts of using the stimulus package to spur investment in three critical digital networks: broadband, the smart grid and health IT.

Join ITIF to discuss findings from a new report that gives a detailed analysis and estimate of the short-term jobs impacts of spurring investment in three critical digital networks: broadband, the smart grid and health IT.

Amar Bhidé’s new book, The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World, rightly observes that the venturesomeness of a country’s consumers, their demand for innovation consumption, is crucial to achieve an innovative economy. While true, this does not mean that an economy’s ability to produce innovations—based largely on the underlying scientific and technological strength of its workforce and industries—is unimportant.

As Congress considers whether to provide emergency assistance to the Big Three automakers, a number of advocates have called for tying such aid to significant reforms by the automakers. In a Washington Times op-ed Rob Atkinson and Mark Cooper argue that Congress should tie any aid to automakers to preemption of anti-consumer state auto dealer franchise law, including laws that prohibit auto manufactures from selling directly to consumers over the Internet. In doing so, Congress can not only help the Big Three but bring down the cost of vehicles for consumers as well.

Please join us for an event to discuss how recent theoretical and empirical work has called into question the core tenants of the neo-classical doctrine—that markets are stable, are driven by rational actors responding solely to price signals, and require little role for government in driving growth. Indeed, this new work, much of it based in the fields of behavioral economics and complexity theory, have shown that economic systems act less like well-structured systems in equilibrium and more like chaotic, complex systems whose outcomes are unstable and can vary widely based on seemingly minor changes.

Going Green Means Going R&D: The only way to solve the global warming problem is through support of a dramatically expanded and improved CO2 reduction R&D program

If the tectonic economic events of the last few months have shown us anything it’s that many of the core assumptions embedded in the prevailing neoclassical economic doctrine that drives much of Washington’s thinking on economic policy are no longer valid. Moreover, recent theoretical and empirical work has called into question the core tenents of the neo-classical doctrine that markets are stable, are driven by rational actors responding solely to price signals, and require little role for government in driving growth. In this article in The Democracy Journal Rob Atkinson reviews two new books that present important critiques to neo-classical economics: The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wreck Markets, Stops Innovation and Costs Lives by Michael Heller and The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity and the Radical Remaking of Economics by Eric Beinhocker.

In a new report, “A Policymaker’s Guide to Network Management,” ITIF Senior Analyst George Ou explains how advanced networks actually work and documents how, if ISPs are to provide customers a good Internet service and operate their networks efficiently, they must be able to allocate bandwidth between users and apply network management tools to shape traffic from multiple applications. However, Ou argues that ISPs can and should do this in a fair and non-discriminatory manner.

In a new report, “A Policymaker’s Guide to Network Management,” ITIF Senior Analyst George Ou explains how advanced networks actually work and documents how, if ISPs are to provide customers a good Internet service and operate their networks efficiently, they must be able to allocate bandwidth between users and apply network management tools to shape traffic from multiple applications. However, Ou argues that ISPs can and should do this in a fair and non-discriminatory manner.

Broadband access spurs economic growth and enhances the quality of life for U.S. citizens, but for Americans to enjoy broadband services at the optimal combination of speed, access (coverage), and price, achieving a satisfactory level of competition in the broadband marketplace will be essential. Some believe that broadband markets are already robustly competitive, others that they are monopolistic or at best oligopolistic and that American consumers suffer higher broadband costs and poorer service options from inadequate levels of competition.

Please join ITIF for a presentation by Dr. Joris Al, General Director of The Netherlands’ Centre for Transport and Navigation in the Ministry of Transport, on Holland’s bold new proposal for a nationwide pay-per-use road pricing program. Holland’s “Kilometerprijs ” (price per kilometer) program will replace fixed vehicle (ownership and gas) taxes to charge Dutch citizens by their annual distances driven, differentiated by time, place, and environmental characteristics.

In a report sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, ITIF employs 29 indicators to assess the extent to which the 50 state economies are structured according to the tenets of the New Economy. The changing economic landscape requires state economies to be innovative, globally-linked, entrepreneurial and dynamic, with an educated workforce and all sectors embracing the use of information technology. The report, which updates and expands on the 2002 and 2007 State New Economy Index reports, ranks the states accordingly. The five states ranking the highest in 2008 are, in order of rank, Massachusetts, Washington, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. With these measures as a frame of reference, the report outlines the next generation of innovative state-level public policies needed to meet the challenges of the New Economy, improve state competitiveness and boost incomes of all Americans.

Find out which states are leading, and which are lagging, in the United States’ transformation to a global, entrepreneurial, digital, and knowledge- and innovation-based New Economy, when ITIF releases its 2008 State New Economy Index. The Index, sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, ranks states on 29 indicators in five key areas—knowledge jobs, globalization, entrepreneurial dynamism, IT, and innovation—on the extent to which their economies are effectively structured to operate and compete regionally as well as globally. The report also lays out an innovation-based policy agenda designed to help states succeed economically in these turbulent times.

In this event, ITIF will discuss the findings from a recent report that explores the impact of IT on energy. In addition, ITIF will be joined by a panel of experts from leading IT companies to discuss new innovations in energy-efficient computing, the overall net impact of IT on energy consumption, strategies to promote “green” uses of IT.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson asks in his recent Huffington Post blog what will Obamanomics look like? That is to say, in what direction with America’s President-elect lead the nation’s economy? The three contenders are Rubinomics, with its focus on deficit reductions and national savings, Neo-Keynesian, emphasizing social policy such as universal health care and tax cuts for lower and middle class Americans, or Innovation Economics that argues growth is, and always has been, a function of innovation and a robust R&D tax credit along with public-private partnerships are the tools needed to spur such innovation.

Read the full text of the Huffington Post article here

In the October 2008 issue of the Communications of the ACM, ITIF Senior Analyst Daniel Castro debates the merits of paper-trails with activist David Dill.

In a new report, Timely, Targeted, Temporary and Transformative: Crafting an Innovation-Based Economic Stimulus Package, ITIF lays out eight specific proposals that would not only spur spending and economic activity in the short run, but also help addresses these challenges going forward.

This blog post reviews findings of a recent academic study on the low numbers of women in advanced mathematics programs, citing a need “to make math cool again” to spur U.S. competitiveness, because now doing mathematics for fun is “deemed uncool within the social context of USA middle and high schools…and can lead to social ostracism.”

This blog post examines whether the push to reregulate financial services industries will lead to calls to reregulate the telecommunications sector, particularly with regard to broadband and wireless telephony.

This blog post examines the candidate’s technology and innovation policies, and provides updated positions from the candidates based on their responses during the Second Presidential town hall debate.

ITIF hosted a breakfast forum on Tuesday, October 14th with Dr. Erica Fuchs, Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Fuchs discussed the results of a new study examining the role of the Defense Advanced Research Products Agency (DARPA) between 1992 and the present on innovation in the United States.

In this article, ITIF President Rob Atkinson argues that the United States needs to be preparing now for what it will do when the information technology-driven economy begins to become less of an engine for economic growth at some point in the future.

ITIF will host a forum to discuss the release of a major new report Digital Quality of Life: Understanding the Personal and Social Benefits of the Information Technology Revolution, a companion to the 2007 report Digital Prosperity.

ITIF hosted a forum with Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie to discuss the release of a major new report Digital Quality of Life: Understanding the Personal and Social Benefits of the Information Technology Revolution, a companion to the 2007 report Digital Prosperity.

In our 2007 report Digital Prosperity: Understanding the Economic Benefits of the Information Technology Revolution ITIF documented how IT, since the mid-1990s, has been the principal driver of increased economic growth not only in the United States but also in many other nations. However, IT is also at the core of dramatic improvements in the quality of life for individuals around the world. In this new report, we show how IT is the key enabler of many, if not most, of today’s key innovations and improvements in our lives and society—from better education and health care, to a cleaner and more energy-efficient environment, to safer and more secure communities and nations.

ITIF will host a breakfast forum with Dr. Gregory Tassey to discuss his new book The Technology Imperative and how national technological investments can spur economic growth.

Rob Atkinson appears on the Brian Lehrer show 30 Issues: Internet and Broadcast Regulation.

ITIF and Silicon Flatirons hosted a conference to discuss how the next administration should spur innovation.

In today’s economy, innovation – the development and adoption of new products and services, more efficient production process­es, and new business models – is the most important factor driv­ing increases in American standards of living. By putting innovation at the center of our nation’s economic policies, we can ensure robust economic growth and rising standards of living for all Americans. ITIF’s Innovation Economics Agenda for the Next Administration lays out eight key recommendations to spur innovation-led economic growth in the United States. Amongst others, these measures include: significantly expanding the federal R&D tax credit, allowing companies to expense new investments in IT in the first year, creating a National Innovation Foundation, and reforming patent and trade policies.

The U.S. political dialogue gives scant attention to innovation and policy to promote innovative activity. This is because the three dominant economic policy models – conservative neoclassical, liberal neoclassical and neo-Keynesian economic doctrines–ignore the role of innovation and technology in achieving economic growth. Fortunately, as described in this policy brief, a new theory and narrative of economic growth called “innovation economics” based on an explicit effort to understand and model how technological advances have emerged in the last decade. This policy brief briefly explains the four economic doctrines and examines how each views particular real-world economic challenges.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama’s campaigns increasingly recognize the central role that science, technology, and innovation play in economic growth and have developed specific policy positions on these issues. This ITIF policy brief compares and assess the candidates’ technology and innovation policies across a number of specific issues areas, including: taxes, R&D funding, broadband and telecommunications, e-government, digital transformation, education and workforce development, trade, patent and intellectual property, and energy and the environment.

ITIF will host a forum discussing U.S. competitiveness in science and technology, and release a report responding to RAND’s U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology report.

In RAND’s Rose-Colored Glasses: How RAND’s Report on U.S. Competitiveness in Science and Technology Gets it Wrong, ITIF presents a detailed critique of the recent RAND report showing that in contrast to RAND’s rosy assessment, America’s lead on a number of key S&T indicators is eroding rapidly, where not vanishing entirely.

In a new report, “Moving to a Post-Partisan Broadband Policy World,” ITIF calls for an end, or at least a serious de-escalation, of the conflict. Please join us for a release of the report and a discussion by panelists on all sides of the issue.

In the last few years the debate over broadband policy has become increasingly partisan and bitter. In this Report ITIF President Rob Atkinson argues that its time to move beyond the partisan bickering. By reviewing the merits and shortcomings of each side’s position Dr. Atkinson draws a blueprint for pragmatic broadband progress in the areas of the U.S. broadband position, net neutrality, the role of competition and overall broadband policy. Although complete policy agreement is neither likely nor beneficial, this web-memo points the way to a more reasoned and less vitriolic debate.

For most people, debating economic doctrines is a pastime best left to the Ph.D. economists working in government, think tanks and universities. Yet economic doctrines are at the heart of the economic policies being debated right now in the presidential campaign, in the halls of Congress, and in the current administration. Virtually all policy makers involved in economic policy, including our two major Presidential candidates, subscribe to a particular economic doctrine, even if they may not be aware of which “camp” they are in.

Click here to read the full entry on the Huffington Post

In an interview with the Austin Statesman, ITIF President Rob Atkinson discusses how Innovation Economics is the best approach to economic growth.

In his recent article in FedTech, ITIF Senior Analyst George Ou discusses ways companies can better manage their IT power use to become more environmentally friendly. Ou argues by adopting energy monitoring and management best practices on both the client and server side firms can also save money by efficiently reducing energy use.

In his recent OPEC 2.0 op-ed, Columbia University law professor Tim Wu offered his vision of a broadband policy by declaring the broadband market a “bandwidth cartel” that has gouged the public like the energy market. To remedy the situation, Wu advocated much more facilities-based competition, particularly through municipally-provided fiber-optic Internet service and called on the government to open up wireless radio spectrum to “liberate us from wires, cables, and rising prices”. While this bash-the-corporation rhetoric may have some populist appeal, Wu’s analysis is both factually and logically flawed.

The Internet has become a multi-service converged network that transports telephony, data, and video for millions of users. Some of those applications cause problems for other applications and this has prompted broadband providers like Comcast to proactively manage their network. Comcast will switch to a more accurate “Protocol Agnostic” network management system by year end. This FCC filing examines how P2P applications harm telephony applications even during low levels of utilization, how traffic shaping technologies can resolve these problems, and how Comcast’s new Protocol Agnostic network management system will work to protect VoIP services.

ITIF hosted a breakfast forum with Dr. Richard Lipsey that discussed technical change and economic growth. Dr. Lipsey is a Professor Emeritus of Economics at Simon Fraser University and author of the award winning book, Economic Transformation: General Purpose Technologies and Long Term Growth.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson discusses privacy in the digital era at Congressional Quarterly’s Forum on Technology.

In this report, ITIF finds that the nature of the U.S. innovation system has changed dramatically over the course of the last 40 years. Using an innovative research method, UC Davis scholars Fred Block and Mathew Keller analyze a sample of innovations recognized by R&D Magazine as being among the top 100 innovations of the year over the last four decades.

In reference to ITIF’s call for a National Innovation Foundation ITIF president Rob Atkinson and Howard Wial of the Brookings Institute answer seven frequently asked questions about the creation of a National Innovation Foundation.

ITIF is proud to announce that Congressman Artur Davis (D-AL) and Congressman Jon Porter (R-NE) have agreed to be honorary co-chairs of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson’s article in the Economic Development Journal.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson discusses the issue of traditional economic policy doctrines – supply-side and Keynesian/demand – versus innovation/growth economics with Vinny Catalano, President and Global Investment Strategist of Blue Marble Research.

There has been perhaps no profession that has more aggressively sought to fend off e-commerce competition than optometry. The American Optometric Association journal Optometry has now published a study that purports to find that contact lens patients are more at risk when buying lenses online. This ITIF report analyzes the study and finds that not only is the study fraught with flaws in much of the methodology, but many of the implications suggested by the authors are either over-reaching in their scope, fallacious in their reasoning, or silent in refuting equally plausible alternative explanations.

In a two part series of articles in The Globalist online magazine, Rob Atkinson describes how, with the balance of trade shifting from multinational corporations to large emerging markets — such as China and India — some nations have turned to unfair practices to gain a trade advantage.

In testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on May 22nd, 2008, ITIF President Rob Atkinson described the growing array of mercantilist trade policies that nations have enacted to unfairly disadvantage foreign – including U.S. – technology products. To combat these practices, Atkinson expressed support for the Trade Enforcement Act of 2007 currently under consideration, and argued further for the enactment of a 25 percent tax credit for corporate expenditures related to bringing WTO cases to fight mercantilist practices.

Despite the fact that most economists agree that increasing productivity is the most important goal for economic policy, few scholars have actually focused on what drives productivity and what governments can do. An exception to this is Bill Lewis, founding director of the McKinsey Global Institute and former partner at McKinsey & Company. At this ITIF Forum, Lewis discusses the results of his research and presents the findings from his book, The Power of Productivity: Wealth, Poverty, and the Threat to Global Stability. See video, presentation slides, and other details from the recent event.

The federal government should create a national broadband strategy, create incentives and support efforts to boost broadband demand in order to increase broadband access, according to a new report released today.

A report examining broadband promotion policies in 9 nations finds that while we shouldn’t look to other nations for silver bullets or assume that practices in one nation will automatically work in another, U.S. policymakers can and should learn from broadband “best practices” in other nations. Emulating the right policies here will enable the U.S. to increase our broadband performance faster than in the absence of proactive policies. Based on the findings from other nations, the report proposes 11 policy recommendations to spur both deployment of more ubiquitous and faster networks and adoption of broadband by consumers.

New poll shows most Americans do not want state or federal tax agencies preparing their taxes.

It’s hard to follow broadband policy without hearing almost weekly that the U.S. ranks 15th out of 30 OECD nations in broadband penetration. But understanding why the U.S. is behind is much harder. In a major new report, entitled Explaining International Broadband Leadership, that examines OECD nations through in-depth case studies and statistical analysis, ITIF attempts to do just that. We invite you to a release event to learn about the report’s results, and to answer key questions.

Recently, a Pennsylvanian couple sued Google for publishing photos of their home on Google Maps. This lawsuit highlights the argument made by privacy advocates that technologies like Google Street View are invasive and inappropriate. In this WebMemo, ITIF Senior Analyst Daniel Castro argues that not only are these privacy fears unfounded, but if we were to accept the position of these privacy advocates, we would have to ban a whole host of modern technologies.

On April 22, 2008, from 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. ITIF, MPP and the Council on Competitiveness will host an innovation briefing. The event will preview two major new reports on federal economic policy: “Boosting Productivity, Innovation, and Growth Through a National Innovation Foundation,” by ITIF President Robert Atkinson and Howard Wial, a Brookings economist; and “Clusters for Competitiveness: A New Federal Role for Stimulating Regional Economies,” by venture capitalist Karen Mills; Liz Reynolds, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral student; and Andrew Reamer, a Fellow at Brookings.

There is disturbing evidence that America’s innovation lead is shrinking. Moreover, expanded support for basic research and science education, while important, will not be enough to respond to this challenge. Without a more robust, targeted, and explicit federal innovation policy, U.S. competitiveness will continue to slip and economic growth will lag. In a new report, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program argue that a critical step in that direction is the establishment of a National Innovation Foundation – a nimble, lean and collaborative entity devoted to supporting firms and other organizations in their innovative activities.

In this WebMemo, ITIF President Rob Atkinson argues that it’s time for a debate in America that focuses on the most important digital economy issues: how to get fast broadband networks to all Americans; how to use IT to transform our health care system, transportation system, education system, and government; and how to encourage all organizations to become digital, thereby driving productivity and income growth, and resulting in a better quality of life.

In the United States the 2010 Census will be the most expensive in history, costing taxpayers more than three times what they paid for the 2000 Census. Recently, the Census Bureau made headlines when it announced that it would need another $3 billion to pay for a failed IT project. Yet technology should not be blamed for the cost overruns and technical problems at the Census Bureau, but rather poor technology leadership. As ITIF Senior Analyst Daniel Castro notes in this WebMemo, this most recent failure by the Census Bureau is evidence that the United States is no longer the global leader it once was in using IT for e-government. Most notably, the United States is one of the few nations not allowing its citizens to submit their census forms online.

See video and presentation slides from recent ITIF Forum, featuring Carnegie Melon Professor Bill Hefley, editor of the new book Service Science, Management and Engineering: Education for the 21st Century. Dr. Hefley makes the case that it is time to bring the same scientific rigor to services that has long been applied to manufacturing.

In a new 3-part series, PBS explores how nanotechnology will change our world. Part 1, “Watching You, You Watching Me” taped at the Museum of Science, Boston, features a panel discussion moderated by John Hockenberry, Emmy and Peabody winning correspondent, NPR and NBC News, and including Rob Atkinson, President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

The 2nd Annual Tech Policy Summit takes place March 26-28, 2008 at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Southern California. ITIF president Rob Atkinson will be hosting a roundtable discussion on protectionist trade policies and their impact on the IT industry on the opening day of the conference.

ITIF hosted an event to debate the technical and economic reasons ISPs may need to manage their networks in the face of increasing bandwidth demands. The event included remarks by Richard Bennett, a network architect and expert on network management issues, and Brett Glass, owner and founder of LARIAT, a Wyoming ISP. Following their remarks, ITIF President Robert Atkinson moderated a wide-ranging discussion.

ITIF President Robert Atkinson’s presentation to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence outlining the intelligence implications of our increasingly digital economy and society.

Despite heated debate about the security and accessibility of voting technology, at the end of the day all sides agree that they want better voting systems. But what will the voting systems of the future look like? At this event, the lead scientists of two of the most innovative voting systems will unveil their most recent research and provide attendees the opportunity to participate in hands-on demonstrations of their technology. In addition, computer security expert Dr. Alec Yasinsac will present an overview of Operation BRAVO – a pilot project designed to bring a secure remote voting solution to the approximately 2 million overseas military and civilian voters who would otherwise be unable to vote.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson recently appeared on PBS’s “White House Chronicle,” with host Llewellyn King to discuss the current state and future of technological innovation and its public policy implications.

Click here to see the episode online

Americans are of two minds about e-commerce; they like its convenience, but they worry about issues like sending credit card information over the Internet. At this upcoming ITIF Forum, John Horrigan of the Pew Internet & American Life Project will discuss the results of a new Pew study examining the prospects and challenges in expanding e-commerce shopping. In particular, John will discuss the frictions and barriers in the online shopping environment and where to target efforts to address those frictions so that all Americans can benefit.

ITIF recently submitted comments to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on the Midterm Review of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA). In its commentary, ITIF states that the U.S. government should continue its historic role in providing oversight to the Internet's domain name and addressing system. The U.S. government has had and continues to play an important role in maintaining the security, stability, and openness of the Internet. The JPA provides an effective backstop to ICANN's original operating principles, helping it to operate in a more open and transparent way.

ITIF recently submitted comments to the FCC on the Petition for Declaratory Ruling Regarding Internet Management Policies. In its commentary, ITIF states that universal access to broadband is an important goal and that users have the right to access lawful Internet content. Yet, even with aggressive deployment of higher speed networks, bandwidth will continue to be scarce for the foreseeable future. As a result, ISPs should have the right to reasonably manage their networks to ensure a fair and efficient distribution of bandwidth among their subscribers. As long as ISPs’ network management policies are transparent, fair, and their express purpose is to address the impact of certain data-intensive traffic on the network, they are in accordance with the FCC’s Internet access principles. The notion that broadband networks are in some way fundamentally different than other networks and should deal with capacity limitations only through network expansion is not supported by either logic or the long evidence from other network infrastructures.

Given the increasingly digital world that we live in, most Americans will be surprised to learn that they will be unable to complete the 2010 Census online. In a new report, ITIF analyzes the decision made by the U.S. Census Bureau to eliminate the Internet response option and concludes that allowing respondents to submit their survey online would have saved the Census Bureau and taxpayers money. In addition, ITIF challenges the conventional wisdom that using the Internet for such an application poses a security risk, and outlines how other countries have met this challenge.

In a recent Huffington Post blog posting, Rob Atkinson argues argues that, instead of embracing growth policies to raise productivity in all the sectors of its economy, China, like many developing nations, has erected neo-mercantilist policies designed to favor a few select export sectors. Not only are these trade practices unfair, but they are not the best way to raise living standards – in China and elsewhere. It’s time to develop a new global consensus that domestic productivity growth should be the key focus of economic policy in every nation.

Construction costs continue to spiral out of control because the industry has not invested in technology, particularly information technology, to boost productivity. At this event, construction industry expert Barry LePatner will discuss how to fix the problem, including how information technology can play a key role in lowering construction costs and what the federal government can do to help.

An event marking the publication of a new ITIF report articulating a national broadband strategy. ITIF President Rob Atkinson will present proposals from the report. Larry Irving, President and CEO of the Irving Information Group, and Blair Levin, Managing Director at Stifel Nicolaus, will respond.

It is difficult to pick up a business or technology magazine without reading that the United States is falling behind other nations in broadband telecommunications. In a new article in the telecommunications law journal CommLaw Conspectus, ITIF President Rob Atkinson demonstrates just how far the U.S. has fallen behind, and outlines the economic rationale for a national broadband strategy, showing why the market alone will not generate the societally optimal level of broadband in the foreseeable future. Atkinson then weighs various broadband policy priorities, offering a framework for crafting a national broadband policy.

In a recent blog post, Art Brodsky, Director of Communications at the advocacy group Public Knowledge, launched a broadside attack on ConnectKentucky and Connected Nation, public private partnerships focused on bringing broadband telecommunications to rural communities. ITIF President Rob Atkinson responds with a posting on the Alliance for Public Technology’s blog, arguing that Brodsky’s attack is not only misguided and illogical, but is motivated by a kind of Internet populism, rather than by the pragmatic goal of bringing broadband to rural Americans.

ITIF is proud to announce that former Congresswoman Nancy Johnson (R-CT) has been appointed co-chair of the ITIF board.

Statement by ITIF Senior Analyst Daniel Castro to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) on the importance of innovation in improving our voting technology. Specifically, this statement discusses the role of using functional standards, as opposed to design standards, to promote innovation in voting systems.

Benchmarking Digital Inclusion, a presentation by ITIF President Rob Atkinson to the Digital Inclusion Forum on December 10, 2007.

An open forum where voting system researchers, election officials, voting equipment manufacturers, policy makers, as well as disabilities and other advocates discussed the proposed draft Voluntary Voting System Guidelines.

After a long period over which Europe was catching up to the United States in productivity, this trend has reversed. Lower levels of investment in information and communications technology (ICT) and less effective use of existing ICT explain a significant share of the lower rates of productivity growth in the European Union over the last decade when compared to the United States. The report argues that regaining robust productivity growth will be critical for EU nations over the next several decades as they struggle with a myriad of challenges, including an aging population.

Article by Rob Atkinson in FedTech Magazine on how government organizations need to embrace IT to innovate and collaborate to create a more open government.

Read the full text of this article

ITIF has released a paper on proposed legislation to overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and, in particular, on proposals to deny immunity to telecommunications carriers that complied with the federal government's surveillance program post 9/11. The paper makes two key points. First, the Bush Administration was wrong in not working with Congress from the beginning in implementing its post-9/11 emergency surveillance program. Second, the focus of Congress' efforts should be on updating FISA, not on holding telecommunications carriers legally liable for complying with what they believed was a legal government order.

A discussion of the importance of information technology for health care, featuring former Representative Nancy Johnson, Dr. Alan Lotvin, Senior Vice President, ICORE Magellan Health Services, and Dr. Edna O. DeVries, Central Division Medical Director, Marshfield Clinic. Rob Atkinson, President, ITIF and Daniel Castro, Senior Analyst will release a new report on how electronic health records can improve health care.

ITIF Senior Analyst Julie Hedlund’s testimony on U.S. programs and legislation to support rural broadband access for the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee.

In a new report, ITIF explores the benefits of using information technology in the health care sector, such as reduced medical costs, improved medical care, and increased access to personal health information. The paper reviews the obstacles that have prevented the widespread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) and proposes a number of policy recommendations to speed adoption. Specifically, the paper discusses the benefits of establishing independent health record data banks as a sustainable and market-based approach to implementing EHRs. ITIF also recommends other methods to leverage federal resources to speed EHR adoption.

ITIF Research Analyst Daniel Correa’s article in the forthcoming issue of IEEE Internet Computing Journal that documents how other nations have more robust broadband than the United States and offers a framework for thinking about broadband policy to accelerate America down the path to next-generation broadband.

ITIF and a distinguished panel of experts discuss the current state of broadband competition, how public policy can spur cutting-edge, “killer apps,” and the kind of policies needed to enable America to full advantage of the new broadband world.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Rob Atkinson (ITIF), and James Gattuso (Heritage Foundation) argue for the need to make permanent the ban on Internet access taxes in The Hill.

Rob Atkinson's article in ScienceProgress about the importance of innovation for meeting the significant new challenges facing this country. The article discusses policies that the United States should adopt to promote innovation.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson’s testimony about globalization of R&D and policy responses, before the House Committee on Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation.

Professor Ken Kraemer, the co-author of a recent study of IT value chains, discussed the nature of the global supply chain for the iPod and notebook computer: where value is created, what each nation specializes in, and how much value each captures. Kraemer and ITIF President Rob Atkinson then discussed what kinds of public policies the United States needs to adopt to ensure that we stay competitive and capture a larger share of the value chain.

A discussion of the white space issue, with a particular focus on how emerging technologies can open up spectrum white spaces to unlicensed devices and thereby spur a new round of digital innovation.

A discussion of the importance of four free trade agreements currently under consideration, featuring Jamie Estrada, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing, U.S. Department of Commerce; Marc Lautenbach, Americas General Manager, IBM Corporation; and John Zogby, pollster president of Zogby International.

Critics of e-voting have demanded that Congress require all electronic voting machines to have paper audit trails. In this report, ITIF analyzes the arguments made by proponents of paper audit trails and debunks the myth that paper audit trails will secure our elections. ITIF advocates that the debate over voting technology should move beyond paper audit trails to a discussion of how new innovations can dramatically improve the ease and accuracy of voting. Specifically, the report focuses on new innovations in voting machines that offer "end-to-end verifiability" and explains the cryptography behind these systems.

A briefing event to unveil the new ITIF report featuring presentations from Robert Atkinson, President of ITIF, and Daniel Castro, Senior Analyst with ITIF. See details and video from the event.

ITIF comments on the Court’s recent decision against Microsoft.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson's testimony on the Small Business Administration's investment programs before the House Committee on Small Business.

Rob Atkinson delivers remarks and moderates a discussion between panelists Jeb Bush, Mark Kamlet, John Kelly, Nabil Sakkab, and Sydney Taurel.

Rob Atkinson’s article in the July 2007 issue of the Journal of Technology Transfer arguing for the importance of the Research and Experimentation Tax credit. The article calls for several important changes to the credit: doubling its current value, modifying the Alternative Simplified Credit to become incremental, and expanding the flat credit for collaborative R&D.

A luncheon briefing on how the latest developments in communications technologies are improving the ability of public safety organizations to keep us safer. See event details and video.

Many nations use a host of unfair and protectionist policies to systematically disadvantage foreign, including U.S., technology companies in global competition. A new report documents the myriad of unfair trade practices and outlines specific steps Congress and the Administration can take to combat this new wave of technology protectionism.

At this event, ITIF released a new report that outlines specific steps Congress and the Administration can take to combat this new wave of technology protectionism. It featured remarks by Congressman Artur Davis, 7th District, Alabama.

The Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) has reduced the cost of Internet access, spurred investment in the digital economy, and contributed to nine years of economic growth. However, the ITFA will expire in November 2007 unless Congress takes action. In this report we explain why Congress should make the current moratorium permanent and eliminate the grandfather clause which allows some states to tax Internet access at the expense of the nation as a whole. The report discusses the legislative history of the ITFA and the national benefits of tax free Internet access. Finally, we review the objections cited by opponents of the moratorium and explain why these objections are unfounded.

The social returns from investing in more broadband exceed the private returns of companies and consumers. As a result, market forces alone will not generate the societally optimal level of broadband, at least for the foreseeable future. In this report, Robert Atkinson lays out the case for a proactive national broadband strategy to maximize overall societal welfare. The report documents four types of economic externalities that limit the market’s capacity to reach the optimal level of broadband adoption without policies to encourage deployment and uptake. It then discusses a number of proactive policies on the supply and demand side which could spur faster broadband deployment and adoption.

ITIF presented a dialogue between Scott Wallsten, Director of Communications Policy at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, and Robert Atkinson, President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and author of the forthcoming ITIF report. The debate was moderated by Kathleen Wallman. See video and presentation slides from the event.

In the last few years many have argued that the middle class has not been receiving its fair share of productivity income growth. As a result, the focus of many, particularly those on the left, has shifted from promoting productivity growth to redistribution as a way to raise living standards for this group of Americans. A new ITIF paper examines carefully the trends over the last 25 years in income growth and finds that, contrary to the conventional explanation embraced by many on the left, the historical link between productivity growth and wage growth is not broken and it would be a grave mistake for our future if our nation gave up on growth and the policies that can spur it.

See video, presentation slides, and other details from ITIF debate to mark the release of new ITIF report.

Featuring a presentation from Ian Fletcher, Chief Executive, UK Office of Intellectual Property, followed by a discussion moderated by ITIF President Dr. Robert Atkinson. The Forum took place at ITIF offices in Washington, DC.

Featuring Ian Liddell-Grainger, Conservative Party Member of the House of Commons, and Lord Cunningham, a former Labour MP, at the Henry J. Hyde Room, H-139, U.S. Capitol.

Rob Atkinson’s Huffington Post blog entry outlining the need for proactive broadband policies to address America’s lagging broadband.

ITIF’s submitted comments on FCC’s proposed revisions to its broadband data collection. The commentary makes suggestions for improving existing methods of data collection, and proposes an alternative user-generated mapping model that would enlist public participation to generate precise local broadband data. ITIF recommends creating a website where consumers could automatically test the speed of their broadband connection and enter additional information, including their location and monthly broadband cost. With the help of mapping technology such as that offered by Google Maps, the resulting proliferation of data points could very quickly yield a nationwide picture of local broadband deployment, prices and speeds.

Congress is in the midst of the patent reform debate. Recently introduced legislation "The Patent Reform Act of 2007" (S. 1145 and H.R. 1908), would provide significant needed reforms to the system. A new ITIF paper examines the issue of patent reform and discusses recommendations. The paper focuses on three areas of reform. The first is patent delay. With over 700,000 pending patent applications in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) it can take 4 years to get a patent. Second, the paper looks at patent quality and the reasons why the PTO issues too many questionable patents. Finally, the paper examines a third problem: the dramatic increase in patent litigation and awards, which impose a significant tax on the U.S. innovation system.

Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), ITIF President Rob Atkinson and ITIF Senior Analyst Julie Hedlund spoke at an ITIF event to release a new ITIF report on patent reform at the Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2226, in Washington, D.C.

ITIF to present a bold alternative to the current royalty system that would allow copyright owners to establish fair and competitive rates for their music.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson and Senior Analyst Daniel Castro spoke at an ITIF event marking the release of a new ITIF report. See details and video from the event.

The March 2007 decision by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) to more than double the rates that webcasters pay to stream music will have a disastrous effect on Internet Radio. A careful review of the CRB decision reveals that not only is this rate increase unfair and undeserved, but it reflects a fundamentally broken system for determining copyright royalty rates. In this report, ITIF describes the current copyright system and the problems with the recent CRB ruling. Finally, ITIF presents a bold alternative to the current system that would allow copyright owners to establish fair and competitive rates for their music.

The United States continues to fall behind in broadband adoption, now ranking 15th among 30 OECD nations, according to the organization’s latest rankings. However, while adoption rate is an important metric, a more comprehensive measure of broadband performance also accounts for price and speed. In a new report, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation releases the ITIF Broadband Rankings, which benchmark broadband penetration, price and speed in OECD countries. The findings show that the United States, which ranks 12th overall, faces a multifaceted broadband challenge. The report outlines several steps policymakers should take to reach a goal of high-speed ubiquitous broadband.

On Wednesday, April 4, 2007, Takashi Ebihara spoke at an ITIF Policy Forum about the Japanese “Broadband Miracle.” Mr. Ebihara is a Senior Director of the Corporate Strategy Department at NTT East Corporation, the largest local telecommunications provider in Japan. He concurrently holds a Visiting Fellowship at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, DC. See video, presentation slides, and other details from the event.

Addressing America’s competitiveness challenge will require policies that do more than boost the supply of innovation resources (e.g., improving education and increasing funding for research); they must also spur demand by companies to locate more of their innovation-based production in the United States. And a key tool for accomplishing this is an expanded R&D tax credit. If the U.S. is to remain the world’s preeminent location for technological innovation (and the high paying jobs that result), Congress will need to significantly expand the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit. In a new report, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation outlines several steps Congress should take to strengthen the credit.

On Monday, March 26, 2007, New York Law School Professor Beth Noveck, Marc Williams, Governmental Programs Executive, IBM and Kaz Kazenske, Senior Director, Microsoft, spoke at an ITIF Policy Forum on the Peer to Patent Project and Patent Reform.

American competitiveness in the innovation-driven global economy has become a subject of intense concern, with many pointing to the shortage of well-trained American scientists, technicians, engineers, and mathematicians (STEM). Amid the proliferation of policy proposals to address the problem, however, one critical component has been largely overlooked: the role of specialty math and science high schools. In a new report, ITIF argues that such schools graduate deeply knowledgeable and passionate students of science and math who are more likely to pursue these fields in college and beyond. As a result, funding the expansion of specialty science and math schools must be an important part of any solution to the STEM challenge. The report recommends taking steps to triple enrollment in math and science high schools to reach 140,000 by 2012.

There have been surprisingly few attempts to catalogue what is known about the economic impact of information and communications technology (IT). In a new report, ITIF does just that, examining the impact of IT in five key areas: 1) productivity; 2) employment; 3) more efficient markets; 4) higher quality goods and services; and 5) innovation and new products and services. The report finds that the integration of IT into virtually all aspects of the economy and society is creating a digitally-enabled economy that is responsible for generating the lion’s share of economic growth and prosperity, both here and abroad, including in developing nations. Importantly, the “IT engine” does not appear likely to run out of gas anytime soon and should power robust growth for at least the next decade, provided that policy makers take the right steps. Toward that end the report lays out five key public policy principles for driving digital prosperity: 1) give the digital economy its due; 2) actively encourage digital innovation and transformation of economic sectors; 3) use the tax code to spur IT investment; 4) encourage universal digital literacy and adoption; and 5) do no harm.

On March 13, 2007, Intuit CEO Steve Bennett spoke at an ITIF event to release “Digital Prosperity: Understanding the Economic Impact of the IT Revolution” at the Marriott Metro Center in Washington, D.C.

02/27/2007
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation today released a report assessing economic transformation in the states.

In a report sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, ITIF employs 26 indicators to assess the extent to which the 50 state economies are structured according to the tenets of the New Economy. The changing economic landscape requires state economies to be innovative, globally-linked, entrepreneurial and dynamic, with an educated workforce and all sectors embracing the use of information technology. The report, which updates and expands on the 2002 State New Economy Index, ranks the states accordingly. The five states ranking the highest in 2007 are, in order of rank, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, and California. With these measures as a frame of reference, the report then outlines the next generation of innovative state-level public policies needed to meet the challenges of the New Economy and boost incomes of all Americans.

In a coauthored report with The Brookings Institution, Robert Atkinson and Howard Wial analyze the projected impact of service sector offshoring on U.S. metropolitan economies. While the report finds that the impacts of offshoring in most metropolitan areas over the next decade are likely to be modest, it forecasts higher than average job losses in twenty-eight U.S. metropolitan areas between 2004 and 2015. To address the impacts, the paper urges federal, state, and local leaders to pursue together policies that boost productivity and innovation, assist workers who are harmed by offshoring, and modernize approaches to economic and workforce development.

In the Winter issue of Issues in Science and Technology , Rob Atkinson argues that current proposals to stimulate U.S. competitiveness are necessary but not sufficient to meet the challenges posed by a rapidly evolving global economy and the aggressive policies of other nations. He makes a number of specific policy proposals, organized into four areas: 1) work to create a global trade regime based on markets, not mercantilism; 2) overhaul the corporate tax code to spur innovation; 3) create new research partnerships; and 4) make digital transformation of the economy within 10 years a national goal.

New report by George Mason University Professor David Hart benchmarking flows of highly-skilled workers to the United States against similar flows to seven other high-income countries. The report compares how national immigration policies foster or constrict these flows, and lays out several broad policy recommendations that the United States should consider to ensure that we not only compete effectively for talent in the short-term, but also lead the world toward a global system for developing and using talent that is beneficial for everyone over the long-term.

ITIF comments discussing the economic and technological benefits that would result from the BellSouth-AT&T merger.

Article by Rob Atkinson in CIO Magazine about how CIOs should respond to the challenges posed by those who oppose the implementation of new technologies like RFID.

Article in CIO Magazine by Robert Atkinson addressing IT opponents.

Presentation by Rob Atkinson at the 2006 Biometric Consortium Conference in Baltimore, MD. The presentation discusses the messages and tactics biometric opponents use and what biometric proponents need to do to counter the detractors.

09/06/2006
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) today released a report examining the effectiveness of the United States Research and Experimentation (R&D) tax credit.

The Research and Experimentation Tax Credit can play an important role in ensuring that the United States remains an attractive location for global companies to conduct research. Not only does the credit spur the retention and attraction of investment in R&D in the United States, new scholarly research shows convincingly that the credit is an effective tool for stimulating additional research, which in turn leads to faster economic growth. However, while the United States had the distinction of providing the most generous tax treatment of R&D of all OECD nations in the early 1990s, by 2004 we had dropped to 17th most generous.

05/29/2006
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation today proposed a “third way” solution to the heated debate over net neutrality.

Presentation at the 2006 Accelerating Innovation Conference in Washington, DC.

Download the slides of this presentation (PDF)

04/12/2006
According to new statistics from the OECD, the United States remains in the middle of the pack among OECD nations in broadband telecommunications adoption.

03/27/2006
Created in Partnership with the Information Technology Industry Council, New Non-Profit Organization Will Be Led by…

An increasing share of consumers purchase contact lenses online, enjoying considerable savings. But if optometrists, working with contact lens manufacturers, have their way, few consumers will be able to do so because optometrists are increasingly prescribing doctors’-only lenses that patients cannot buy online. ITIF President Rob Atkinson argues that private restraints instigated by manufacturers on behalf of optometrists to limit the online sale of contact lenses are anti-competitive and anti-consumer, and that government should step in to address this market abuse.

Because online legal services are a direct threat to revenues, the legal industry has used its regulatory power to thwart the emergence of these cheaper and more convenient online legal offerings. Attorney James Johnston and ITIF president Rob Atkinson argue that policy makers should encourage the development of online legal services, and specifically that offering advice or preparing legal documents online should not be deemed the practice of law if the consumer does not expect to establish an attorney/client relationship with the online service.

In a recent article in Foreign Affairs entitled "Offshoring: The Next Industrial Revolution," noted economist Alan Blinder presented a provocative and disturbing thesis: the offshoring of service sector jobs represents a "third industrial revolution" likely to lead to one of every three American jobs being shipped overseas. In this paper, ITIF President Rob Atkinson shows how Blinder's projections are vastly exaggerated.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson argues that it is time for a radically new approach to e-government. Many e-government applications are user-unfriendly, designed around agencies’ needs rather than citizens’. By their very nature, governments have a hard time building applications that link together multiple agencies and programs, and an even harder time linking applications that cut across levels of government. To move to the next level of e-government functionality, governments must think of themselves less as direct providers of e-government services and more as enablers of third-party integrators that tie together multiple agencies across multiple levels of government to package information, forms, regulations, and other government services and requirements in user-friendly ways. Moving to this “turbo-government” model has the potential to dramatically boost the uptake of digital government services, cut costs for both government and users, and make the experience of dealing with government less frustrating.

For a shorter version of this report, see Rob Atkinson’s article in Public CIO Magazine.

ITIF President Rob Atkinson and University of Colorado Professor of Law and Telecommunications Phil Weiser argue that the current state of the network neutrality debate denies the reasonable concerns articulated by each side and obscures the contours of a sensible solution. They outline those concerns, as well as the claims made by both sides that they believe are not factually correct or economically supportable. They then propose a three-part, "third way" solution that allows incumbent broadband providers to offer managed broadband services, provided that they also offer a basic and growing open, non-discriminatory "best-efforts" Internet pipe to broadband consumers.

On May 4th, ITIF President Rob Atkinson debated radio frequency identification (RFID) foe Katherine Albrecht at the 16th Annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference.

According to new statistics from the OECD, the United States remains stuck in the middle of the pack among OECD nations in broadband telecommunications adoption. This ITIF policy brief analyzes U.S. broadband performance compared to other nations and argues that the traditional excuses for poor U.S. performance, particularly the argument that leading nations have higher population densities, no longer holds.

The Past and Future of America’s Economy focuses on how periodic cycles of technological and economic change have fundamentally reordered the way we work, the organization of business and markets, and the role of government. It examines this process of change over the past 150 years and explores the responses of people and institutions. The book then analyzes today’s New Economy, including the new information technology system, and effects on markets, organizations, workers, and governance. Taking into account the historical record, the book discusses the shortcomings of prevailing liberal and conservative economic doctrines and lays out a new growth economics agenda aimed at maximizing the productivity and innovation-enhancing forces of the New Economy.