Disavowing that he was speaking in his role as a member of President-Elect Barack Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board, and disavowing interest in serving as the new administration's chief technology officer, Google CEO Eric Schmidt did provide a hopeful view of the potential synergies among public policy, technology and economic renewal.
Schmidt is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the New America Foundation, the organization that hosted the speech and live webcast from Washington, DC on Tuesday.
Echoing incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's rejoinder not to let any crisis pass without taking advantage of it, Schmidt told his audience in the Ronald Reagan Building, "The country has faced many, many more significant challenges. ... Let's take the crisis ... and let's deal with it as an opportunity to get the structure right."
"If you're going to spur economic growth you've got to focus on infrastructure research and development and energy. These are jobs programs," he said, pointing out that the historical record was on his side of the argument, "Infrastructure is the foundation upon which wealth is created"
Even as the heads of the American auto makers and their unions lobbied for loans in front of a lame duck Congress just down the street, Schmidt said that there was a better way to go than invest in past failures, "Let's not just have bailout programs. Why don't we use the stimulus money to get infrastructure built?"
The strongest parts of the speech were those that were within Google's wheelhouse - the democratization of information. "In our life time, almost all people will have access to almost all the world's information. That is a remarkable achievement."
What's more important, said Schmidt, was having systems as open as the information that they surface and exploit, ""Open systems have this clear promise of innovation and greater choice.... It is that openness, the ability that [allows] anyone can play ... that drives the modern economy.... You never know where innovation's going to come from, but with an open platform, you welcome it,"
Aware of his audience and the location of his speech, the Google chief closed by noting that, in his view, the public sector has been a laggard in adopting new platforms for governing -- including but not limited to blogs and social network, "Government has not embraced generally the tools we use every day.... It's time to do it and do it right."
Schmidt is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the New America Foundation, the organization that hosted the speech and live webcast from Washington, DC on Tuesday.
Echoing incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel's rejoinder not to let any crisis pass without taking advantage of it, Schmidt told his audience in the Ronald Reagan Building, "The country has faced many, many more significant challenges. ... Let's take the crisis ... and let's deal with it as an opportunity to get the structure right."
"If you're going to spur economic growth you've got to focus on infrastructure research and development and energy. These are jobs programs," he said, pointing out that the historical record was on his side of the argument, "Infrastructure is the foundation upon which wealth is created"
Even as the heads of the American auto makers and their unions lobbied for loans in front of a lame duck Congress just down the street, Schmidt said that there was a better way to go than invest in past failures, "Let's not just have bailout programs. Why don't we use the stimulus money to get infrastructure built?"
The strongest parts of the speech were those that were within Google's wheelhouse - the democratization of information. "In our life time, almost all people will have access to almost all the world's information. That is a remarkable achievement."
What's more important, said Schmidt, was having systems as open as the information that they surface and exploit, ""Open systems have this clear promise of innovation and greater choice.... It is that openness, the ability that [allows] anyone can play ... that drives the modern economy.... You never know where innovation's going to come from, but with an open platform, you welcome it,"
Aware of his audience and the location of his speech, the Google chief closed by noting that, in his view, the public sector has been a laggard in adopting new platforms for governing -- including but not limited to blogs and social network, "Government has not embraced generally the tools we use every day.... It's time to do it and do it right."
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