Vint Cerf to keynote 2008 State of Technology Luncheon

2008 STATE OF TECHNOLOGY LUNCHEON
Friday, May 9, 2008, The Westin Seattle
Featuring a keynote conversation with
VINT CERF, Vice President & Chief Internet Evangelist, Google

How will tomorrow’s internet reshape how you do business? What exciting new ways will you be able to connect with customers, family, friends…even total strangers halfway around the globe?

Get inside the mind of internet pioneer Vint Cerf as he discusses the new frontiers in cyberspace with University of Washington's Ed Lazowska. Log on to the future along with 1,000 leaders from business, research, education and government at the premier event for Washington's technology community.

The State of Technology Luncheon
May 9, 2008
The Westin Seattle
Networking & Registration: 11:00 am
Luncheon Program: 11:45 am - 1:30 pm

Sponsorship packages featuring reserved seating, extensive visibility for your company or organization, and other exciting benefits are available – click here for details! Reserve your package today by contacting Katy Tollefson at (206) 389-7261 or katy@technology-alliance.com.

Individual tickets are $85 with advanced registration. Click here to register online.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

On January 11th, Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, faculty member in environmental studies at The Evergreen State College, treated members of the Seattle Science & Technology Discovery Series to a fascinating and inspirational look at life at the top – treetop, that is – in temperate and tropical forests. Dr. Nadkarni spoke about efforts to “explore, connect and reflect” – explore the forest canopy ecosystem, connect people to the forests, and encourage reflection on the importance of the canopy to our natural world.

Innovations in non-destructive methods of accessing the canopy have enabled researchers to explore the diversity of wildlife among the trees and analyze the impact of disturbances – both natural and man-made – on the canopy ecosystem. Dr. Nadkarni’s research examines the role of canopy-dwelling plants and how nutrients cycle through the ecosystem, with a particular focus on how the canopy draws nutrients from atmospheric inputs like rain and mist. Calling the plants that dwell in the canopy “the canary in the coalmine,” Dr. Nadkarni noted that these organisms are an early warning system for large-scale environmental changes.

Did you know...?

• The canopy has its own soil. Called arboreal soil, it is very acidic, experiences severe dry-downs, has a slow decomposition rate, and harbors very different microbial populations than terrestrial soil.
• Moss harvesting for horticultural use is a $265 million-per-year industry and growing, a grave concern to researchers due to the key role it plays in the canopy in drawing nutrients from the atmosphere and the fragility of the canopy ecosystem. For example, in one experiment researchers removed a quantity of moss to gauge how well it recovered; 35 years later, only 25% of the missing moss had returned.
• The International Canopy Network was formed to communicate the importance of preserving the canopy and connect people to the forests. Among the novel ways in which ICAN is reaching out to a larger audience: the introduction of TreeTop Barbie.

The podcast of Dr. Nadkarni's talk is available on the Technology Alliance web site.

Keep your eye on the PRIZE

Another exciting season of the Seattle Science & Technology Discovery Series is underway. During the season opener on September 14th, Discovery Series members were amazed by Dr. Mark Roth of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and his research in suspended animation. We learned just a week later that Dr. Roth was chosen to receive a prestigious MacArthur Fellow award for this revolutionary work.

The October 12th breakfast featured X PRIZE Foundation President Tom Vander Ark, who shared his organization’s approach to promoting innovation by appealing to the competitive spirit.

The X PRIZE Foundation establishes global competitions laying out specific targets designed to encourage breakthrough innovations that benefit humanity. Vander Ark described the power of prizes to create new industries and reshape existing ones, noting that there was a long and storied history behind this approach to stimulate ground-breaking human achievements. Through competitions like the Archon Genomics X PRIZE, to be awarded to the first team to sequence 100 genomes in 10 days, and the Google Lunar X PRIZE, earmarked for the successful launch, landing and operation of a lunar rover complete with a “mooncast” back to Earth, the Foundation is capturing people’s imagination while accelerating the development of scaleable solutions to humanity’s biggest challenges in a variety of sectors.

Did you know...?

• The use of prizes has proven to be a powerful motivator in the past. Charles Lindbergh made his historic 1927 flight from New York to Paris to win the Orteig Prize, which was established by Raymond Orteig in 1919 to reward the first aviator to complete the journey non-stop between the two cities.
• The Foundation’s first competition, the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE, was put up for grabs in 1996 to the first team to successfully fly a three-person, reusable spacecraft to a 100 kilometer altitude twice in two weeks. Mojave Aerospace Ventures won the prize in 2004 with its SpaceShipOne.
• X PRIZEs are highly leveraged and encourage private investment in innovation. Teams vying for the Ansari prize spent more than $100 million in private funds trying to win the competition.

Podcasts of the presentations of both Dr. Roth and Tom Vander Ark are available on the Technology Alliance web site.