[FRIAM] Fwd: [1st-mile-nm] Lujan: Libraries + Innovation

[Tom Johnson]

FYI
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Richard Lowenberg" <rl at 1st-mile.org>
Date: Jan 12, 2017 9:52 PM
Subject: [1st-mile-nm] Lujan: Libraries + Innovation
To: "1st-mile Nm" <1st-mile-nm at mailman.dcn.org>
Cc:

Lujan: Libraries + Innovation

http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2017/01/lawmaker-public-
libraries-can-boost-american-innovation/134518/

President-elect Donald Trump's technology agenda is largely opaque, but at
least one member of Congress has a message for his administration: ideas
for cutting-edge technology often comes from the grassroots.

“Innovation may have a national or even global impact but like politics,
the process of innovation is inherently local,” Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M.,
said during an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation event on
Capitol Hill on Wednesday. The government needs to think of creative ways
to “provide resources to the innovators ... across the country," he added.

Lujan advocated for establishing maker-spaces in public libraries,
potentially outfitting them with small-scale manufacturing equipment such
as 3-D printers, that are accessible to businesses, researchers and the
nearby community. Because public libraries already exist across America,
"including the rural parts, where we still don’t have bandwidth capacity,"
they could become hubs for technological development outside Silicon
Valley, he said.

Lujan, who co-founded the House Technology Transfer Caucus, singled out
this and a few other innovation-themed recommendations for Trump's
administration mentioned in a report from the ITIF and the Brookings
Institution.

He also advocated for creating an Energy Department-based nonprofit that
could dole out funds to transition technology out of federal research labs
and into the marketplace. Lujan said he's working on legislation that would
encourage Energy to promote partnerships with local economic development
groups including maker-spaces.

Other specific recommendations mentioned in the report include encouraging
student entrepreneurship and increasing research and development tax credit
generosity.


---------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
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