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3/1/2004 9:00 AM
The role of Virginia’s
Center for Innovative technology (CIT)
Peter Jobse
President
Virginia Center for Innovative Technology
IDHS Executive Committee
An intellectual argument is being made that CIT has been involved in training individuals to be entrepreneurs of a specific type. The value of this seems reasonably established if one accepts the notion that only entrepreneurs of the type reinforced by Mr. Hamilton are deserving of start-up funding (whether from private or public sources).
At one point entrepreneurial training may become a type of fundamentalism, leading to a church-type community of insiders and outsiders.
This may be what has happened at the CIT over the past few years. The behavior fits into a large functional system, including Federal-funding mechanisms. But this functional relationship based on exclusion may not be serving the National interest. Specifically the functional system may be inhibiting the establishment of technology that is vitally needed within our intelligence community, and by society.
http://www.bcngroup.org/beadgames/conjecture/two.htm
A number of leading scholars are observing that the overall federal IT procurement system reinforces a well defined exclusionary judgment regarding which categories of computer based innovations might be valuable to society. We observe that, as a general principle, proper funding mechanisms are needed at critical points in the process of innovation conversion to adopted technology. What may be happening at CIT, and within the Federal system of systems, is that a switch occurs.
Rather than provide what is needed, a selection process occurs that reinforces a class of poorly defined and executed IT business models. This switch is a form of hijacking, since funds earmarked for real innovation is captured by individuals who only understand simple minded business models and who are antagonistic towards mature cognitive and social science.
The power of this system or systems is such that the de-selection of innovation based on narrow criterion becomes authoritarian by right of incumbency, not for any objective reason. The "best" innovations are said to be funded because the definition of best is hijacked by the system of systems. As is claimed by many who have been involved in DARPA R&D funding, the result is that businesses and business consulting firms use 100s of millions of dollars that should be claimed to fund real innovation in the application of social science and cognitive science to correcting the perplexing software procurement model.
Friend of the Intelligence Community Meeting at NIST
Exclusion practices, such as those expressed by Mr. Hamilton, reinforces a social perception that the system of governance is unfair and untrustworthy. Due to his actions, and the similar actions of others at CIT, CIT has become an illustrative example of this exclusionary governance. He has said to me that the CIT is free to do what ever it wants in this regard. He has also shown extreme exclusionary behavior to me and to others, including invitations to not participate in CIT meetings.
The deeper social/economic problem is that certain types of innovations are excluded because the fundamentalist church-like exclusion comes with the influence of hidden agendas, like the economic support of friends or the intellectual support for a simple minded ideology. This can lead to wasteful and fraudulent activities. Proving that this is occurring is made difficult by the extreme form of authority that can be exhibited by individuals.
A behavioral cycle can be predicted to occur if there is no acknowledgement that this type of exclusionary practice is possible. The behavior is illustrated by the fable about a emperor’s new clothes, where the emperor’s court refuses to acknowledge that the emperor is naked. This social behavior, in the fable, occurs because of the threat that those who cannot see the, non-existence, clothes are not pure at heart. In the case of the training at CIT, the threat is that those who do not accept the simple minded templates will not get any start-up funding from anyone.
Individuals are willing to testify that an exclusionary practice is reinforced by CIT’s training, and that individual innovations that would other wise have been good investments where excluded.
If measured by the size of the operating budget, the funding pie is getting smaller at CIT when it should be getting larger. Perhaps there are good reasons for this reduction in budget.
Mr Hamilton has claimed to be the authority on what the CIT mission statements mean, in spite of the fact that his interpretation is narrow and exclusive. His job at CIT would appear to give him this right only if there is some openness to consider what might be achieved if a less exclusive viewpoint where to be taken seriously.
I again ask for a meeting on this issue. To marginalize my request will reinforce the notion that state funding is supporting a type of religion.
It is for the upper management at CIT to take positive steps towards addressing the perception that the CIT's training is exclusionary in nature.
I have talked with Mr Hamilton and others at CIT about the possibility that new federal dollars could be acquired by CIT if the CIT’s purpose was to stimulate what we call the knowledge technologies. Many do observe that innovation of specific types is excluded from funding. We make the argument that currently un-funded innovations would support new types of uses for computers in knowledge discovery, knowledge creation and knowledge management. But the intellectual justification for making this move is sophisticated.
The type of training that the CIT conducts takes the position that if the innovation cannot be understood within a specific business oriented worldview, then one should not be at CIT or talk to folks at CIT. This attitude excludes from discussion CIT’s possible involvement in developing the knowledge sciences and the knowledge technology sector.
I would like to talk with you and your staff about the potential for new federal funding that might be captured if the Institute for Defense and Homeland Security where to align itself with the science and the science community to serve the National need.
Dr. Paul S. Prueitt
Director, BCNGroup Inc (Not for profit)
Founder, Ontologystream Inc
703-981-2676
This letter is a public letter
http://www.ontologystream.com/beads/nationalDebate/twentyfour.htm