A Mind for All Seasons

(Continued from front page)

“My role is to advance the dialogue,” he said in a phone interview immediately following the meeting, and then, with barely a pause: “What did you think of the meeting?”

Convergence:  What do you see as the future opportunities and challenges for the John Adams Innovation Institute?

Dubendorf: There are fundamental infrastructure issues with the Innovation Economy that we’ve not solved in the Commonwealth. Broadband connectivity is a perfect example of that. We’ve got to get that done.

Today, there are 31 totally un-served communities in Western Massachusetts, and another 30 under-served. If a community doesn’t have access to affordable broadband, it can’t participate in the knowledge-based economy.

We’ve worked for a long time—more than a decade—on these issues, and we’ve done a good job of identifying the barriers and challenges and potential solutions. It’s time we moved ahead as a Commonwealth with the investments necessary to make it happen.

We’ve learned that we can’t leave broadband issues to be decided by the regulators of the telecommunications services. They haven’t got the job done.

Convergence: How do you see the role—present and future—of the Innovation Institute?

Dubendorf: In the longer term future of the Innovation Institute—and the Innovation Economy, we will need to become more heavily engaged in the process of life-long education. We need to answer questions, such as: How will we populate the intellectual landscape of the future? What will it look like? How will we grow it?

In many of the arenas we work in – broadband, marine sciences, energy, life sciences, and securing federal investments in academic research – it is much too important to leave the outcomes to happenstance. The Innovation Institute’s role is that of a catalyst and a convener and a midwife.

We have two jobs at the Innovation Institute: to nurture those components of the Innovation Economy that are achievable in the near term, and in the longer term, to ensure that the economic benefits are realized in portions of the state outside Boston—in places such as Brockton, Holyoke, and Pittsfield.

Today, the Commonwealth’s Innovation Economy is very Boston-centric, and there are limitations to that.

When we leave behind big areas of the state, we impoverish the intellectual future of the state. A strong economy enjoys as many diverse, geographic locations as possible. It is an investment in high-quality human capital.

Convergence: What can we be doing better?

Dubendorf: The capture of downstream economic benefits of the Innovation Economy is something that we’re failing at right now.

We’re exporting genius in projects, in products, in design, and in human capital, and we’re not getting paid for it.

And we’re not going to fix that with easy answers. At the end of the day, it’s endemic to our circumstance. We are not going to be a manufacturing center of choice by industry; our population is aging, our climate is cold, our electricity costs are too high, and housing is too expensive.

The proposed study by Richard Lester at MIT, which will provide a comprehensive look at the Commonwealth’s Innovation Economy, may start to give us some answers why we’re not harvesting genius, and instead, exporting it at below-market rates. In that sense, we’re a bit like third-world countries, exporting our natural resources at low rates.

We need to recognize that one of our most important ‘natural resources’ is genius and innovation.

Convergence: What do you see as the promise of the Patrick Administration?

Dubendorf: When administrations change, there’s often a sense that they act is if the past didn’t exist, that we were without any history. To its credit, the Patrick Administration did not try to start things all over again, it looked at what worked, and it has preserved successful policies.

So far, the Patrick Administration has done a very good job of listening, to engage in matters of policy on broadband, energy, life sciences and marine science and technology. I find all the early moves to be quite positive. I’m excited about the promise of a new administration.

That said, there’s no lack of problems to tackle, all of which need immediate attention.

In terms of energy policy, we’re vulnerable. We’ve got to get very serious very shortly; we have to use market forces to help make policy.

The cost of housing in the Commonwealth is a huge burden on the economy and the Commonwealth’s future. It explains in part the loss of talent and genius.

Broadband connectivity should be in the top five policy priorities.

Convergence: To what do you attribute the success of the Innovation Institute in leveraging investments over a relatively short amount of time?

Dubendorf: We have achieved something significant in a short period of time. It comes with a respect that has been earned.

Politics and political significance in Massachusetts is a hardball game. It’s not for amateurs; it doesn’t come lightly.

A large part of the reason for our success has been the leadership of Pat Larkin. He has a highly refined sense of the needs of the Innovation Economy, as well as a sense of the capacity of the political sector to engage and interact. He has sought out and brought people to the table and engaged with them in dialogue, and he has listened.

He has also demonstrated a kind of intellectual humility about the problems and the opportunities, with the emphasis on the need to solve problems. With Pat, it’s not about proclamation, it’s more about hard work and intellectual nimbleness and acuity.

Convergence: Does your day job ever get in the way of the work for the John Adams Innovation Institute?

Dubendorf: No. They complement each other. They are a source of mutually sustaining energy. The energy from one sustains the other.

Return to front page of Convergence.

“We’re exporting genius in projects, in products, in design, and in human capital, and we’re not getting paid for it.”