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Hi I'm Haley Van Dyck and I'm sitting here with Aneesh Chopra the first CTO of the United
States We were lucky enough to have Aneesh join us today at the FCC Spectrum Summit where
he chatted with Meridith Baker around Spectrum policy in the United States we fielded questions
from Twitter which we have a couple that we are going to ask Aneesh very quickly first
question is from carlos laigreta what specific policies in the U.S. government are we using
to promote innovation? Well the President's strategy for American Innovations layouts
three categories of policies policies that focus on the building blocks of innovation
that would be our committment to nearly double the amount of investment and basic science
R&D if you will which we're committed doing around the agencies of the National Science
Foundations/NIST and the Department of Energy's Office of Basic Science it includes the President's
committment to encourage 5 million more Americans to get college degrees as part of his overall
American graduation initative which includes resources over 2 billion dollars and that
initative and it also includes the President's committment to enabling a broadband infastructure
for the country which did include our Recovery Act investments in exccessive of 7 billion
dollars plus a number of other activities today's discussion chief among them are policy
framework around spectrum we're also committed to in the second leg of the President's strategy
for American Innovation policies that will promote specifically open and competitve markets
focus on entrepreneurship and here the Presidents been focusing on ensuring the right rules
of the road we went through a big debate on reglatory reform but it's also our programs
are on open government to release government information to allow entrepreneurs to take
advantage of that information and turn them into businesses and news family and love ones
can use last and certainly not least the President said there's certain topics as a Nation we
need an all hands on deck approach to catalize break throughs break throughs to help us enleash
clean energy economy break throughs to bend the healthcare cost curve through technology
and here we added a number of investments in the Recover Act well over 80 billion dollars
in these areas alone that right now churning through the economy we hope to build the jobs
and the foundation for economic prosperity in the future great next question how can
government innovation benefit from access to mobile broadband well this is an exceptionally
important queston because there's really two pieces to this puzzle there's the question
of how we can unleash more cost competitive services in supportive of goverment missions
so we spend $80 billion dollars a year in IT and we also have a pretty healthy operating
budget within the federal government so to the extent that mobility and applications
that ride on mobile platforms can actually be used in a way to help make our operational
budgets more effective and efficienct we're really bullish on that my colleague the Chief
Information Officer has been putting forward a number of programs encouraging that kind
of thinking but it's also how we can achieve the mission objectives of the agencies making
sure we have healthier food, making sure we a safer water system, making sure we a financial
systems that works. Here we need to connect with everyday Americans and we believe that
the mobile platform allows us to connect people in ways we could never have imagined because
not everybody can hire lobbyist and come to Washington and have their voices heard. So
we got to take advantage of the mobile platform to connect people in ways they would never
imagined. Just as a simple and silly example early this year the President wanted to find
out what should be the scientific and technological challenges be in this country? And we asked
that question and maybe a hundred people engaged and wrote memo's to the President. Folks that
live in Washington and knows how Washington works. Then the President decided as an experiment,
why don't I pose this exact same question on my Facebook account and Twitter account?
And within three days one point five million Americans engage in some form or fashion to
comment on or retweet or remessage what are the scientific and technological challenges
we should face as a nation. This is we, the power and potiental of these new technologies
can be and we haven't scratch the surface of yet. This is a great example of online
citizen engagement. Well thank you for that. Last question, we'll wrap up here. What do
you personally think the largest game changing application for consumers on the market? So,
in all cander, my passion is to deliver the President's policies in health, energy and
education and I believe that the new tablet devices actually have the potential to unluck
opportunities that we only dream about years ago. If we want every physician or nurse practioners
in America to compute or have access to computing power. It's just natural they're defaulting
to mobile platforms being tablet or other mobile devices. So as new applications come
to the healthcare space, I actually think it'll lower the barrier and increase the likelyhood
those stake holders will participate in the program. And ss we engage more in our healthcare
IT program, I think it will have impact on cost and quality improvement for the rest
of us in the healthcare system. Similarly I think in energy, unclear exactly what it
will mean to consume energy data and in new creative ways. But mobile apps I think will
be a big part of the equation to help us consume less, be more effienct and actually help us
rid ourselves our addiction to foreign oil. Last but not certenly not least, I commented
on citizen engagement, I do think there is a killer app here which is connecting people
to their country. Again restoring faith in government and I think people are starting
to feel that in small and little ways. My deputy went down to Manor, TX population 6,500.
And in Manor, TX, they used a simple cellphone application so you can take a picture of a
pothole. Upload it to a website at no cost to the tax payer, maybe $30 a month I think
they pay. And to have the citizen know when I tell you the pothole's here, I can see it
when you fix it and they can tell me when it's done. That kind of citizen engagement
in ways we're just starting to scratch the surface of. Again, we highlighted citizen
engagement, I think that's going to have a big effect on our country's psych and our
committment on our faith and support for our institutions of government. Absolutely. Alright.
Well thank you for your time Aneesh, for those of you interested in watching more of the
videos from the Spectrum Summit today, you can visit fcc.gov/live thank have a great
day