more on todays wp - for IP - role of innovation in makin geconomycompetitive,finland; contrast us trends

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Turner, Jim" <Jim.Turner () mail house gov>
Date: July 15, 2005 11:04:51 AM EDT
To: "'dave () farber net'" <dave () farber net>
Subject: RE: [IP] more on todays wp - for IP - role of innovation in  
makin geconomycompetitive,finland; contrast us trends


The Finns are pretty open about what they are doing, and  there is  
much that
we can learn from them.  They are not focused on frameworks like much of
Europe.  Dana is correct that their approach is closer to the American,
especially what the US did during the 1990s.  For instance, we have an
Advanced Technology Program in the Department of Commerce, that has been
under partisan attack for over a decade and now gets about two/thirds  
the
funding TEKES puts into a similar program, despite our having 280  
million
people and the Finns having 4 or 5 million.  They, like us, are  
working to
use universities as engines of growth and regional development.   
Their high
tech companies, like some of ours, invest in startups. They are spawning
innovation beyond their borders in neighboring countries with a common
heritage.  It is no accident that they are one of the handful of truly
competitive nations in the world and we would be in trouble if their  
size
were close to ours.  There is good info on TEKES available on their  
website
and they send out regular electronic newsletters on what they are doing.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ip () v2 listbox com [mailto:owner-ip () v2 listbox com] On  
Behalf Of
David Farber
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 2:27 PM
To: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: [IP] more on todays wp - for IP - role of innovation in
makingeconomycompetitive,finland; contrast us trends



-----Original Message-----
From: "Dana Blankenhorn"<dana () a-clue com>
Sent: 14/07/05 12:02:18 PM
To: "dave () farber net"<dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on todays wp - for IP - role of innovation in
makingeconomycompetitive,finland; contrast us trends

Anyone familiar with the Internet's history knows that what John Kemp  
says
is at least somewhat misleading.

The government does fund basic R&D heavily, through military agencies  
like
DARPA, and through civilian agencies like NASA.

Some of that has gone into direct hires, some has gone to  
Universities. The
Internet is a direct result of this process for fostering innovation.

We have had many notes on this list in the last few years bemoaning  
the fact
that this system is under systematic budget attack by the government,  
which
is now taking a more short-sighted view of its DARPA funding efforts,  
and a
far more political view on its private funding efforts.

It would be great to know the standards used by the Finnish agencies. I
suspect they are fairly objective, based on cutting-edge potential and
possible profitability.

Personally I would love to trust our government. I can't right now.  
But if
we had a more honest, less corrupt, and more transparent governmental
system, it would be good to return to our own version of the Finnish  
model,
which we ran as recently as the 1990s.

Dana Blankenhorn   danablankenhorn () mindspring com
Mooreslore Blog    http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/


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