Mark Weatherford, the Chief Information Security Officer at the State of California, posted on his blog, Securing GovSpace, about his experience as a panelist at the third annual IT Security Entrepreneurs Forum.  He commented on his overall experience as well as on the panel which I moderated "Is There an Innovation Crisis in America?":

"While all of the sessions were unique and informative, the panel discussion on "Is There An Innovation Crisis in America" was very enlightening.  When the Innovation Crisis panel was asked by moderator Pascal N. Levensohn to identify the top two things government should do to increase innovation, the three panelists (Dr. Curtis R. Carlson, Dr. Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande, and Lesa Mitchell) were almost unanimous is saying that the government should be providing more funding for research.  Dr. Carlson also said that Sarbanes Oxley should be eliminated for small companies since it creates such a huge burden and Ms. Mitchell stated, somewhat humorously, that when we issue a PhD to a foreign student, the diploma should come with a green card to keep them working here in America."

Lesa's comment was not meant to be humorous– in fact, the National Venture Capital Association publicly advocates that U.S. PhD recipients who are foreign nationals should receive a green card "stapled" to their degree if they are willing to commit to build a new company here in America.

 One of the key takeaways from the rich content presented across the various panels is that technological innovation and cybersecurity are intimately linked.  Protecting our innovation ecosystem, particularly our basic research in science and technology, is key to our national security.

We are planning to post the full video of the ITSEF III Innovation panel on the web in a few days, which will be the first time that an ITSEF panel releases its content to the public.  Lots more to come on this important topic.

Related posts:

1. ITSEF III Video: Converging Forces– America’s Innovation Crisis, Cybersecurity, and National Security
2. ITSEF III Video: Curt Carlson, CEO of SRI International, Calls for a National Innovation Czar
3. ITSEF III Video: Desh Deshpande on the Role of Universities and Research Institutes as Centers of Excellence in Technology Innovation
4. ITSEF III Video: Unintended Consequences of U.S. Regulation– Serious Risks to Venture Capital and Innovation
5. Taking Silicon Valley’s Innovation Message to Washington: A Special Event on Cyber Security at the National Press Club June 25th Sponsored by the Security Innovation Network

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 7:12 am and is filed under Adult Education, Entrepreneur, Foreign Policy, Leadership Profiles, Levensohn Venture Partners, Science, Venture Capital, Web/Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.