President Obama visited Hudson Valley Community College today in Troy, New York which has been hit hard by the economic recession. He emphasized the role of community colleges and steps the administration is taking to increase the number of college graduates. He plans on increasing funding for Pell Grants by eliminating the subsidies to banks for student loans and having the federal government provide such loans directly. The White House has laid out an overall strategy for innovation in three parts:
1. Invest in the Building Blocks of American Innovation. We must first ensure that our economy is given all the necessary tools for successful innovation, from investments in research and development to the human, physical, and technological capital needed to perform that research and transfer those innovations.
2. Promote Competitive Markets that Spur Productive Entrepreneurship. It is imperative to create a national environment ripe for entrepreneurship and risk taking that allows U.S. companies to be internationally competitive in a global exchange of ideas and innovation. Through competitive markets, innovations diffuse and scale appropriately across industries and globally.
3. Catalyze Breakthroughs for National Priorities. There are certain sectors of exceptional national importance where the market is unlikely to produce the desirable outcomes on its own. These include developing alternative energy sources, reducing costs and improving lives with health IT, and manufacturing advanced vehicles. In these industries where markets may fail on their own, government can be part of the solution.
The fact sheets and white paper for the innovation strategy can be found here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/sept_20__innovation_whitepaper_final.pdf
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/innovation_one-pager_9-20-09.pdf
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/innovation_three-pager_9-20-09.pdf
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