This week the White House will put out a call to techies and scientists across the internet, asking a simple question: What should the United States’ next greatest technological and scientific achievement be? Get your answers ready, geeks.
When you reply to the White House’s prompt–on Twitter, Facebook, or via email–your voice will be heard and your ideas will be counted. I know, because I helped build the software that will capture your responses and deliver them directly to the people in charge.
Ready to get involved? Here’s what to do.
- Think big! Imagine an ambitious science or technology challenge (something huge like the moon landing!) which you think can inspire great new ideas and inventions. Here are some examples President Obama listed.
- Follow @whitehouse on Twitter or become a fan of The White House on Facebook, and watch for a tweet or post about the grand challenges in science and technology between Monday April 12 and Wednesday April 14.
- Reply to the tweet or post with your idea, or a link to ideas you find interesting. On Twitter, use the hashtag #whgc. Alternately, you can email your response to challenge@ostp.gov.
- Encourage your friends and followers to respond, too!
Everyone working on the Grand Challenges initiative can’t wait to hear what you have to say, so thanks in advance for your insights and participation. We’ll be sharing the responses we got both online and at Twitter’s first official conference, Chirp, this week in San Francisco.
Give @whitehouse Your Feedback! [Expert Labs]
Join the Conversation on the Future of Science [AAAS]
One Comment
Luther
“Here are some examples President Obama listed.”
What prosaic stuff. Grist for the 1 percenters that Thomas Edison referred to rather disparagingly. Presidents aren’t too much on inventing, I guess. Abraham Lincoln got a patent–6,469, to A. Lincoln, Method of Buoying Vessels. Inventing is best left to the inventors. What would help is getting rid of “hired to invent” so that employed R&D people had an incentive to invent instead of just doing lackadaisical corporate research at a snail’s pace.