Google Executive Urges Improvements to Technology Infrastructure
NextGov.com (11/18/08) Nagesh, Gautham

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says the U.S. federal government should invest in green technology and a national computer infrastructure to help create jobs and foster American innovation. Schmidt, part of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, also supports a smart power grid that uses two-way communications and advanced sensors to deliver electricity more efficiently. He says Obama supports such an approach. Schmidt says the federal government has a critical role in creating the framework that will allow technological innovation to flourish.

“Let’s take this economic crisis and deal with it as an opportunity to get our infrastructure right,” he says. The government also should make more frequencies available to TV and other broadcast mediums to allow for greater innovation, says Schmidt, citing the fact that only 55 percent of Americans have access to broadband, and the fact that the United States, which invented the technology, ranks 15th in the world in terms of broadband availability.

Schmidt called for a universal broadband strategy to give all Americans access to high-speed Internet service by increasing competition among carriers, as well as for greater investment in research, noting that the creation of the Internet was largely due to the DARPA-furnished grants to study computer networking in the 1960s and 1970s. He also says the federal government should do more to promote math and science education and not force foreign students to leave the country after getting their education in the United States.