Closing Remarks
Gordon Moore
Intel Corporation
Dr. Moore reiterated that STEP had been looking at public-private partnerships for more than four years, and that some of them had worked well. He thanked some of the people who had made that four-year survey possible, including the key financial supporters, the NRC staff, headed by Chuck Wessner, the STEP board itself, and the GIP Committee, especially his vice-chair Bill Spencer.
He asked to remind the workshop of one perspective that should not be forgotten, which are “some deep partnerships between government and industry that are implicit rather than explicit.” These kinds of partnerships, he said, were responsible for such achievements as creating an environment in which innovation can take place and be exploited. They had also promoted education and training, regulation, and the laws that govern how organizations behave, such as anti-trust laws and intellectual property laws. In addition, the structures of taxation, fiscal policy, and monetary policy also formed a kind of partnership that had made the United States the most productive place in the world to create technological innovations and transfer their value to the marketplace.
He closed the workshop by thanking all panel participants for their presentations, and for demonstrating the ongoing importance of partnerships to the complex public issues of the day. “It’s nice to see,” he said in conclusion, “that our work is applicable to this major new problem area that the nation is forced to consider.”
