During keynote remarks at the Hoover Institution’s 2022 Tech Track II Symposium, Hoover Institution director Condoleezza Rice announced the Fall 2023 publication of The Stanford Emerging Tech Review, a new multidisciplinary collaboration in which scholars and experts from Stanford will summarize contributions of university researchers in areas of critical technology over the past year.
In addition to advising US government officials and private-sector leaders on recent advances at Stanford in key technology areas, the first annual publication of The Review will examine the potential challenges, opportunities, and consequences of their use.
Rice noted that The Review will be driven by expert scientists, not just policy scholars. “As a research institution at Stanford and in Silicon Valley, Hoover's work can address the most pressing needs faced by government and industry leaders in understanding the effects of technology and innovation. This collaboration with Stanford streamlines the communication between scientists on the cutting edge of innovation and policy makers to better assess the benefits and challenges that frontier technologies might have on society as a whole,” Rice said.
The Review was born out of the 2021 Tech Track II Symposium at the Hoover Institution, which illuminated the need to provide a single comprehensive resource for the policy ramifications of cutting-edge research being conducted on the Stanford campus.
Technology areas featured in the report will change each year based on on-campus developments and US government critical technology lists. The inaugural issue of The Review will focus on ten sectors: (1) artificial intelligence; (2) biotechnology and synthetic biology; (3) cryptography and blockchain; (4) energy generation, storage, and transmission; (5) nanomaterials; (6) neuroscience; (7) nuclear technologies; (8) robotics; (9) semiconductors; and (10) space satellites, communications, and propulsion.
The Review will be guided and overseen by a council of Stanford faculty members from various fields related to science, engineering, technology, public policy, and economics. Each faculty council member will focus on one of the ten sectors listed above. Respectively, they will lead regular discussions intended to exchange ideas with experts in key technological areas; receive feedback on the accuracy of articles prior to The Review’s publication; and participate in outreach events and briefings to stakeholders in academia, industry, and the government.
The faculty council will be cochaired by Condoleezza Rice, director of the Hoover Institution; Jennifer Widom, dean of Stanford University’s School of Engineering; John Taylor, Hoover senior fellow and Stanford professor of economics; and Amy Zegart, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute. The Review also includes an advisory board formed of industry leaders, distinguished academics, and senior government officials who will offer expertise about critical issues and trends. Herb Lin, the Hoover Institution’s Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Security and Policy, will provide operational leadership to the project.
In her remarks, Widom noted the unique collaboration The Review will offer. “One of my goals has been for the School of Engineering to be more collaborative across the entire Stanford campus,” she said. “I can’t think of a better opportunity than to join Condi and her colleagues in this enterprise. I think it will be incredibly impactful, and I look forward to the School of Engineering collaborating in what, for us, will be a new and far-reaching type of impact.”
Confirmed Faculty Council members include Zhenan Bao (nanomaterials), Dan Boneh (cryptography and blockchain), Yi Cui (energy generation, storage, and transmission), Simone D’Amico (space), Drew Endy (biotechnology and synthetic biology), Mark Horowitz (semiconductors), Fei-Fei Li (artificial intelligence), Allison Okamura (robotics), Kang Shen (neuroscience).
The Advisory Board members include: Steve Chu, Bob Gates, Sue Gordon, John Hennessy, Jerry McNerney, Lloyd Minor, Eric Schmidt, and Tom Siebel, among others.
The convening of The Review was announced during the public reception portion of the 2022 Tech Track II Symposium, “Mobilizing the Private Sector in a New Political Era,” held Wednesday, November 30 at the Hoover Institution.
The 2022 symposium rallied senior US government officials, academic experts, and private sector leaders to focus on how America’s innovation industries can better advance the national interest based on lessons learned from the war in Ukraine and China’s increasingly aggressive posture in the Indo-Pacific, especially the threats it has made against Taiwan.
Cohosted by Zegart and her Hoover colleagues H. R. McMaster, Raj Shah, and Michael Brown, the symposium featured participants discussing how private-sector companies should consider America’s security interests in their decision making; opportunities and challenges surrounding innovation of technologies that have applications in both the commercial and military spheres; and how to invigorate meaningful public-private-academic partnerships. There was also a deep-dive session into three areas of technology where innovation will be particularly consequential: artificial intelligence, space technologies, and synthetic biology.
For more information on The Stanford Emerging Tech Review, contact Alexandra Sander at aasander@stanford.edu.
For coverage opportunities, contact Jeffrey Marschner, 202-760-3187, jmarsch@stanford.edu.
