With the presidential election upon us this year, I have been thinking a bit more than usual about our country’s future. Although I am interested in a range of issues regarding where America is headed, I am mostly interested in the approach the next president will take regarding America and technology. Technology will only become more integrated into our lives and, most importantly, as an essential part of America’s infrastructure.
Get Them While They’re Young
If you’ve seen the stats about where America ranks in terms of education, it’s a sad tale of decline. Our educational infrastructure is ranked 23rd in the world and seems like it declines even more every passing year. I saw some recent statistics from OnlineEducation.net concerning developed nations around the world, and the youth of our nation rank 25th in math and 21st in science. Around 1.2 million high schoolers drop out every year, which equals about one student every 26 seconds. I believe technology can help America get on track to trend upward in these stats rather than continually declining.
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One of the most exciting things of late is Apple’s major push to get iPads into classrooms. The release of iBooks Author makes it relatively easy to create next-generation textbooks, and educational resources like these will hopefully lead to an unprecedented amount of innovation around how technology is used to foster learning in ways not possible with analog mediums.
As much as I believe the iPad and tablets in general present one of the most exciting advancements for education in some time, integrating them successfully will not be easy. For this to work, the system has to change and we need to begin to think more creatively about how we educate our youth.
One of the most important and fundamental principles that has been acknowledged over the past 20 years is that not everyone learns the same way. My eight-year-old, for example, has no problem learning through repetition and busy work. For her, the system works. There are, of course, ways the system can develop and be more effective even for her learning style but the point is that the system works.
For my youngest, who is now seven, the system does not work. She learns through interaction and engagement, she needs more hands-on work filled with examples, and more importantly (just like me), she learns through trial and error most effectively. She gets frustrated with the current system’s processes, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is hungry to learn. She simply needs better tools. That’s where tablets come in.
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I have been a proponent of using the iPad and a number of great educational apps and resources in my kids’ own educational development. My key takeaway with regards to technology and education is that technology must be used as a tool to help educators. It’s a part of the educational process, but not the process in and of itself. What I means is that we can’t assume that we can just hand kids these tools and walk away, expecting them to learn.
The technology itself won’t teach them. Tablets are remarkable new tools in educators’ toolboxes and they need to be integrated as such. If we believe that technology is key to our future, then making sure kids grow up with sufficient exposure will be key.
Of course, making technology affordable is also critical. I hope to see more government subsidization programs that can help offset costs and fast track technologies like tablets and other interactive learning tools into our educational institutions. That’s something I would gladly put my tax dollars toward.
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Foster Innovation in America
Fostering continued innovation in America is also one of the most important things to the future of our country. America is one of the best places to start and run a business, and we need to ensure it stays that way. With regards to both the private and the public sector, we need policies that foster creativity, ingenuity, entrepreneurialism and more. When it comes to government-related policies toward the tech industry, we need a level of wisdom beyond what is typically employed. Our governmental leaders do this to a degree, but I still strongly encourage a much deeper engagement with our technology industry leaders than currently exists.
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In my opinion, the U.S. needs an immigration philosophy that supports and makes it easy for immigrants to start companies and keep them U.S.-based. Here are few facts on this point from a report by the Partnership for a New American Economy:
– Fortune 500 companies founded by immigrants or children of immigrants employ more than 10 million people worldwide.
– More than 40 percent of the 2010 Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children.
– Seven of the 10 most valuable brands in the world come from American companies founded by immigrants or children of immigrants. Five of those seven are tech companies (Apple is one of them).
– In 2010, companies founded by immigrants or children of immigrants to the United States generated more than $4.2 trillion in revenues. That’s a figure that exceeds the 2010 gross domestic product of all but two other countries in the world.
Many of the best and brightest from other countries come to America to get a higher education, yet the Center for Public Policy Innovation estimates that over 50,000 workers with advanced degrees leave the country for better opportunities elsewhere. This is because they can’t get work visas and must leave the U.S. to find work that makes use of their degrees.
In fact, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration’s Services updates in 2007 and 2008, visas for temporary high-skilled workers were in such short supply that they ran out of the entire year’s worth of visas in less than a week. We need to make sure that the “better opportunities foreign” workers leave for exist in the United States.
The spirit of entrepreneurialism is ripe in our county — especially in Silicon Valley, where I live and work. Just a casual walk through downtown Palo Alto and you’ll sense the hustle and bustle of start-up life. We joke that starting companies in Silicon Valley is like a second language to many folks. We even have a conference called Teens in Tech that celebrates and encourages entrepreneurialism at a young age. According to a forecast by the U.S. government, we could see a shortage of 20 million workers by 2026. Preparing for that future by creating jobs must also come from companies and innovators not born in the U.S. as well.
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While much technological innovation has taken place in the past 30 years, I believe that we’re just now at the beginning stages of one of the most technologically innovative time periods in our world’s history. It’s important that we ensure the new technological advancements, technology companies and innovations come from the United States.
Ben Bajarin is the director of consumer technology analysis and research at Creative Strategies Inc., a technology industry analysis and market intelligence firm in Silicon Valley.