December 6, 2005
Center of Excellence Proposal
à
[bead thread on curriculum
reform]
The Taos Institute
(on the possibilities)
Paul:
Let me reassert that my focus is on how knowledge works in any science or application and for any host platform -- mechanical, biological, etc. It is not in pursuit of the Turing test of simulating human neurophysiology and to discover their special species dependent entailments. The experimental opportunities will grow for that in biotech, but all that belongs to a newer generation. My tasks call for building the circle of industry leading knowledge scientists and engineers who can take the lead I have given them, accelerate forward, and leave all following footsteps far behind.
We have now a great business team assembled here now and my focus is on finding the young programmers and knowledge scientists eager to show me they want to lead and have the right stuff. All of us are willing to live on the edge just to be here and the best of the best are joining us. We are centered now on seeking out companies and individuals near at hand in Southern California to sponsor cycles of our "Creating Systems that Know" course privately for their employee groups or publicly through UCI extension.
Our Spring course will be on campus, especially to recruit faculty and grad students, Senior people that take the course are all hatching their own project designs which we discuss widely in classes. My son, Jeff is directing future Knowledge Research (our traditional R&D project initiatives) and reviewing project concepts that will break new ground or effectively demonstrate the newest Mark 3 potentials. Jeff ran a number of our most successful past projects (NASA T-38, JSF, MilFind, etc.). He went on from there to run one California's fast developing IT support services companies Prosum, then developed the contracts that are putting Toshiba botebooks into every WalMart this Christmas at unbelievable prices.
Our students are all getting the Course textbook, older Mark 2 Knowledge Base Demo discs and Mark 2 Production System -- much the same as I gave you. The course gives them 10 weeks with which to learn how to use them. Aerospace, communications, electronics, and biotech are biggest technologies in these LA, Orange, and San Diego Counties.
We have begun inviting the CTOs of potential strategic partners to join in on Mark 3 design reviews and to solicit cross licensing arrangements that will provide us with plug-ins and other conventional file drivers or screen rendering engines to assure a full spectrum of traditional "dataforms" inside our semantic web framework. Similarly our COM interfacing lets them put semantic web backends behind their platforms. Jeff Ballard, David McQuiggan, Dennis Thomas, & Bob Dietrich are all pushing this strategic partnering front forward in a region compact enough to perfect the basic teaming arrangements.
Generally we are beginning to get inquiries suggesting possible speaking invitations and are most likely to respond to those eastward to Arizona & Nevada and northward to the Bay area. We filled yesterday as a Nevada Corp and foreign California LL.C. Conversations are being renewed rapidly with previous keynote hosts like Delphi, IdeAlliance, Seybold, IEEE. By mid-2006 we may be ready to start connecting with other parts of the country. Until then eastward trips need sponsors.
Our prime Washington connections and Board Members have all been raised to very high offices and responsibilities. Robert Ballard (given own ship - E/V OKEANOS EXPLORER), Mills Davis (Project 10X), David Lehman (DOT), Gordon Runner (DOE), Mick Taylor (DOD), Joe Williamson (EDS). So the task soon is to rebuild East Coast, Central, and Mountain connections, rollout workshops, and touring technical shows and classes. Also publishing base for course and modeling sourcebooks -- plus annual Master class event and venue.
None of this presumes some mega-super investor or government sugar daddy. It just supposes that everyone knows the the worth of their own venues and wants to make their organization the featured annual stopping place for events and visitors leading this new industry. Generally given an event with reasonable (out of pocket sized) cost and travel sponsorship, some qualified investor will make loans for stock to make it happen. That at least appears to be the current temperature as we see it.
Its industry formation time -- you need to start polling and identifying those prepared to move and see what they can reasonably offer -- both sooner and later. This is not, I think, build a research lobby time -- the research is over. If anything the first task now is to wake up the supposed Computer Science institutions and show them what's coming in ways that subtly make it plain the future they thought distant is knocking on an unexpected door.
Our talks do that without overstating the progress. Bringing them through the course outline and into design discussions has been the softest, least confrontational way to break the news. The profound difference in direction surprises them into interest, then the depths of self-evident achievement speak for themselves.
The 2006-2007 tasks are to show them others can take the new tools and deliver comparable or more imaginative success.
Dick