Is America Facing a Technology Innovation Crisis?

According to Forrester Research, nearly 4,000 white-collar jobs are leaving the U.S. a week for low-cost locales. McKinsey & Co. forecast the U.S., Europe, and Japan combined lose 600,000 of these jobs a year. In the late 1990s, science and engineering accounted for 5% of U.S. undergraduate degrees; in China, they accounted for 73%. Intel Chairman Andy Grove recently posed the question, “Do we have the national will to take productive action? When the problem becomes obvious, it will be too late.”

This roundtable explores whether the technolgy industry is at an innovation crossroads. Does offshore outsourcing pose a long-term threat to U.S. security? To industry’s ability to innovate? What is the appropriate role of government? Should it strive merely for a level global playing field or go further?

Participants

• Dave McCurdy
  President, Electronic Industries Alliance and former Member, U.S. House of Representatives
• Paul Magnusson
  Washington Trade and International Economics Correspondent, Business Week
• Barry C. Lynn
  Senior Fellow