US politics embraces an informed tech agenda

Net Results: Much talk in Silicon Valley last week focused on new proposals by the Republicans to boost funding to research and development, increase the number of science and maths teachers at primary and second-level schools and create some favourable tax structures for technology companies.

This was all part of a tech-friendly agenda that Republicans have promised to push through in a set of bills during a so-called "Innovation Week" later this year.

But, an indication of just how prominent science and technology are now as political issues, Democrats were not about to let Republicans claim this agenda as their own. Activists stood outside the crowded room in Washington where the announcement was to be made, handing out copies of similar proposals from several months ago - a pointed reminder that such topics have been on other agendas for some time.

The two parties differ on some points, such as lawsuit reform, and the extent to which the government should be encouraging (read: subsidising) broadband access for the general public.

But in general, everyone wants to be seen to have an informed technology agenda (what a difference this is to Ireland, where few politicians can even speak to these issues and party policies - where they exist - are as vague as a corporate mission statement).

The tech elite out west - for that is where almost all of them are based - are preening themselves at this unparalleled attention. Once upon a time - basically, before Microsoft's antitrust trial in Washington - the techies got on with technology out west, while federal lawmakers got on with lawmaking in the east, and rarely the twain did meet.

But all that has changed as two things became clear: first, technology is now a pillar of the US economy (as it is in Ireland) and central to US competitiveness; second, Washington needs to be watched and advised or the feds may do things that make the techies very unhappy.

Hence the new dialogue, with lawmakers only too eager to be seen rubbing elbows with the heads of Silicon Valley tech companies, and tech companies placing hundreds of lobbyists in Washington to plead and cajole.

On a more frivolous note, I was amused to see that one of the long-standing traditional dating agencies in the San Francisco region has decided to take on the internet.

Table For Six is an agency that arranges small lunches for just what it says on the tin - groups of six people, three men and three women who seem potential dating partners. As dating agencies go, Table For Six is a nice idea - a lot less anxiety-inducing than a one-on-one date with someone you've never met.

Even my mother thinks this is an acceptable way to meet a partner, and hints broadly at signing me up (no doubt convinced that Valley tech millionaires must lunch at such events in search of a journalist spouse who would be willing to listen to endless conversations on bytes, multi-threading and TCP/IP).

But back to Table For Six's latest strategy, which is this advertisement placed in the region's newspapers and magazines: "The internet is no match for our matchmaking skills. E-mail tag. Out-dated photos. And just downright impersonal."

Well, they have a point, several of them. Still, they face a real challenge in prying people off Date.com, Match.com, Craigslist.org and all

the other online outlets for lonely hearts.

And on another frivolous note - or is that a serious one? - Bertie is set to be a big hit out in San Jose on March 14th . That's when he will be guest of honour at the Spirit of Ireland dinner during St Patrick's Day festivities.

How do I know this? Not because I have access to the Taoiseach's agenda, but because there was much kerfuffle in the media about the event while I was out there, as - and you probably don't know this - San Jose has been twinned with Dublin for 20 years. Who set up the twinning project on the Irish end way back then? Why, none other than Bertie Ahern, then mayor of the metropolis.

You can find out more at the website set up to honour the twins: www.sanjosedublin.com. Well, of course there's a website - this is Silicon Valley after all!

I have my own suspicions that this was a most devious, most cunning move on behalf of IDA Ireland, eager to forge links with a city at the centre of America's economic growth in the late-1980s and with all those nice big fat tech company pickings. "If only we could persuade them to come to Ireland!" they must have thought. Well, now they have.

My personal hope, and that of many entrepreneurs, Irish start-ups and technology multinationals based here, is that Bertie will have a chat with the powers that be in San Jose and San Francisco about getting Aer Lingus into either of those city's airports when the "open skies" agreement kicks in next year.

That's one simple step that would do wonders for encouraging real economic growth and exchange between the regions.

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