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Obviously the presidential election is at the forefront of many minds as we reach the boiling point eyeing early November.  The conventions were as usual, rather ridiculous, containing many attacks and few actual discussions of policy.

One thing that sticks out in a number of the key debates on issues for me as both an advocate of education and a technologist is innovation and what our politicians are doing to support the growth of innovation in our country.  In my mind there really isn’t a more relevant issue.  Innovation is also a notion that can help to benefit the advancement of many other issues out there as well.

Take the energy issue for example.  McCain, Palin and the rest of the GOP (along with almost every Alaskan resident smelling a sweet oil dividend check) is heavily in favor of drilling for oil in Northern Alaska, more specifically the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a piece of wilderness that is vast and for the most part untouched.  The main argument for this drilling is that it will enable us to be energy independent, though all of the research done, maintain that drilling in Alaska will not really bring us very much closer at all to energy independence.  Here’s an idea as to how to achieve this so-called “energy independence” – Stop using so much oil!!!  Start innovating alternative ways to power machinery like cars and trucks.

ANWR - Now picture an oil rig here.

See here for some interesting information about drilling in the ANWR.

But sure, that’s easy for me to say, but actually decreasing oil usage is a huge challenge.  There are however plenty of ways that we can individually decrease our oil usage – and it all starts with innovating alternative ways to run cars and trucks and other machinery.  Companies like Smith Electric Vehicles and Tesla Motors in the Bay Area are working on this and so far the results have been very impressive.  If a candidate can truly embrace innovation as a means to solve the energy crisis – focus on giving subsidies and tax breaks to companies trying to solve the issue, even go so far as to create a venture fund to back new ideas…these are the innovative ideas that will truly lead to the future of energy for our country.

Another issue to consider is education, which is an issue that has gotten somewhat lost in recent days (I didn’t hear McCain or Palin mention the word education once by the way).  Think about it – say we can achieve greater energy independence by drilling in Alaska.  If we don’t start innovating practical new alternatives to energy production, then we may find ourselves becoming dependent on new technology developed in other countries like China, Japan, India or Germany and we’ll be back where we started.  It all starts with education.

This issue has to be more on the mind of voting Americans, as education represents the future of our country.  China and India and other countries are creating problems for us in many global markets because they are educating their children in science and technology at much earlier ages than we are here in the U.S.  It’s time we look at our education system at the federal level and re-assess how we are educating our kids.  Many charter schools are attempting to institute science and technology education at earlier ages, and in order for us to compete with China and India in this space, we need to re-think our education strategy.

Innovation is the issue that should be being supported and pushed by out politicians, and will truly lead to the change that these people keep talking about.